Saturday 30 March 2013

Mad Dogs and March Hares

The threats contained in North Korea's Pyongyang statements about a state of war now being in place with South Korea are nothing new from a state where madness reigns .....
 
North Korean War Maps Shown In Background
Background Maps Show Fanciful
Plans To Attack The USA

.....in fact they have regularly threatened violence and often backed this up with physical attacks.
 
In fact once you look up the history of its violence, you have to be amazed at the restraint of the South Koreans, Japan and US (the three main targets of the violence). I suspect that other neighbours would have smashed this lunatic state decades ago. As it is, its deliberate showing of maps with US cities  Austin, Washington, and other sites as targets for a nuke strike, indicate that its trying desperately to get the world to take it seriously .... so the fact that its being mocked as foolish seems to be just winding it up to more desperate measures.  

Kim Jong Un - Good Reasons To Target Austin Texas
Kim Jong Un - Good Reasons To Target Austin Texas

But the fact is that, like Iran, the attempts to stop its nuclear and missile ambitions via sanctions have failed, it has a 7 kilotonnes weapon, and missiles that theoretically can reach the US coast (but based on progress in the past decade, in another decade will be able to cover the whole of the US).  To put the weapons into perspective, in 2006 it was under 1 kilotonne, 2009 2 kilotonnes, and now 7 - the US bomb on Nagasaki in 1946 was 21 kilotonnes.

Estimated Range Of North Korean Missiles
Estimated Range Of North Korean Missiles

So those who dismiss this as all rhetoric and blister are ignoring the fact that North Korea will commit acts of war against its neighbours to ensure that the rhetoric is listened to. If they think that everyone is ignoring the words, they will be tempted to back them up by some action calculated to be just short of forcing the US to attack them.
 
But if this misfires, then China may wish it had removed the regime in the North a decade ago.

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