Here we go again

A friend of mine has asked me to comment on the resurgence of the North Korean nuclear crisis, so I thought I'd give it a whirl. A little over a year ago, I expressed my belief that North Korea wasn't going to use, or even test, any of its weapons and I still stand by this prediction, especially with the news that North Korea is (only, in my opinion) using the threat of a missile test to get the world's, and more specifically the United States', attention. To put it simply, North Korea is like the older sibling who throws a tantrum because he's jealous of the attention being given to his younger sibling (i.e. Iran).

Long story short, North Korea is just, again, trying to get the best deal that it can. Launching an intercontinental missile, as some believe the DPRK is preparing to do, would just not be rational from the standpoint of the Koreans. That isn't to say, of course, that allowing your population to starve to death is rational, but testing a missile would alienate the North Koreans' only remaining real ally -- China.

If China can no longer take the side of the North Koreans, the North Koreans will be, as we say in the business, screwed. So, I suspect the outrage being expressed by the State department is feigned on some level, because one: they're pretty sure that even the Koreans aren't that stupid, and two: they know that if the Koreans do go forth with the missile test that it makes our position that much stronger. Of course it's easy for me to say sitting here out of range of the missile and not being responsible for millions of lives, but I'm just not too concerned about the Koreans' little tantrum. They're not really in the position to be making any demands.