This Isn't Your Father's North Korea

Pay attention, pay very close attention to North Korea.  We have all gotten very complacent with North Korea.  We have a beagle that used to bark in our neighborhood every night.  At first it was irritating and then it became background noise.  So much so, that when it passed away I didn't notice for months.  We have gotten the same way with North Korea.  We have treated their outrageous behavior much the same way that we treat a child throwing a temper tantrum at the grocery store.  We turn away and pretend to be reading the People Magazine at the check stand. Not so fast, this time is different.

Sure, Kim's pop did some whacky stuff.  He shelled as S. Korean island, he sank one of the ships, launched a pile of missiles (some even almost worked) and lit off their first almost nuke.  As nutty as the old man was, he at least had memories of what a war was like and that gives any man, no matter how crazy, some pause.  Junior has never seen war, nor has most of his military leadership.  He has no idea how nasty these things can be and he is bolstered by the false sense of confidence that the worst he can do is a draw. 

To make matters worse, North Korea is a desperate country.  People who are desperate are capable of anything and I mean anything!  Not only is Junior inexperienced, he lacks any sort of maturity or qualification for running the country unless you count inheriting the family business as experience.  Junior is like the bratty kid in the neighborhood who's dad bought him a BMW M3.  He loves driving it hard and he has no idea of the potential for damage or the ramifications of getting into an accident.  So, desperation plus immaturity is a very dangerous combination.

We tend to write them off as a bunch of bluster but...  while they can't reach us with a missile yet they can hit South Korea and Japan both staunch US allies.  Their nuclear weapons are tiny as far as nukes go but guess what?  That makes them far worse in the sense that the radiation the leave behind will be far worse.  We think that their military is no match for the US.  Maybe not, but they gave us plenty of trouble before and some of the things they have demonstrated have shown more sophistication then has been portrayed in the media.  I know this, I can't tell you how but just trust me.

If all that weren't enough to make your morning coffee unnecessary, we operated under the illusion that China had control of them.  It's clear that China does not have as much control as we once thought.  We keep thinking if we find a way to just ask them nicely enough and/or junior strays far enough off the reservation they will put him back in his place.  Maybe or Maybe Not.  Remember that North Korea serves a very important purpose for China, it puts real estate between their back door and a US ally.

So, why would we care about this?  Right now as a country we are paying attention to everything but North Korea.  We are screwing around with Syria which will eventually sort itself out and right now Syria doesn't have nukes or long range rockets.  We need to start paying attention to what junior is up to over there because his next tantrum could have us in a shooting war and I don't think the Chinese will be too wild about us bringing a bunch of high tech weapons to their back door.  This is how world wars start.