Kim Jong-uh oh

[thewayne]

"The time has come to settle accounts with the U.S. imperialists in view of the prevailing situation."
—Kim Jong-un, ordering North Korean forces to be on standby to strike the U.S. mainland and U.S. bases in the Pacific

I wonder how insane this guy is. He's cut all of the emergency diplomatic phone lines with the south, so there's no direct way for the U.S. or South Korea to talk to him. I think China has direct diplomatic ties.

Could be just posturing for some later advantage, like increased food supplies since he's totally incapable of feeding his country's population. Could be a prelude to war with South Korea. Maybe he is actually thinking about throwing nukes at the U.S. I wonder if he's realized that his people are slowly starving to death, and maybe by starting a war and rolling over, then letting the U.S. and S.K. rebuild him, that he/his people would be better off.

The certainty is that he has demonstrated North Korea has atom bombs of some sort, but it's doubtful that he can accurately target the U.S. Launching a satellite in to orbit is not the same as launching an ICBM.

Comments

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

That's part of the problem, we don't know where the insanity lies. In the USSR and now in Russia, the CIA had people inside. In China, the CIA has people inside. North Korea? Not so much. Because they're so insular from both a self-imposed and tech-backwards standing, we can't gather signals intelligence very easily except from state-run TV.

Best possible case for NK damaging the US is they drop bombs on a couple of cities, in return Pyongyang gets wiped out. The big problem in dealing with NK has always been that the capital of SK is within artillery distance of the border with NK. I've never understood why they haven't built a city in the south and relocated government there and let people and business follow as they may.

Being defiant against insane neighbors is one thing, but remaining in an insane position when there are doable alternatives is another.