Are we so desperate as a country to fight a "real" army that we need to concern ourselves with some chubby kid waving his dad's gun around? Yes, they have nukes, but there are no possible outcomes in which North Korea wins a war using military might or culture bombs. Bombers can tactically strike that Asian peninsula from a plane that goes wheels up in Missouri. In a closed military society, provocation is the lifeblood. All Kim Jong Un is doing is undertaking a bellicose PR campaign. By getting in a dick-measuring contest with South Korea aka the United States, it proves itself a world player while providing distraction to its own starved people not locked up in a gulag. As a nation, we should be too adult for this. Iran is doing basically the same thing, but when we see an actual nation-state with tanks and uniforms we lurch at it. It is partly our nature, but it also seems like the dormant part of our fighting spirit that wants to take on a classic enemy we can recognize and defeat after a decade of taking on ethereal religious guerrillas. Where's the "fun" in developing the best tank on the planet and not being able to use it?
I would not concern myself with a nation that cannot feed its own people. The burn rate of liberties usually consumes whatever is fueling the iron fist within a century or two. Here's how much better American-style capitalism is than North Korean-style communism; our poor people are fat. If you look at that through the long lens of history that is simply amazing. Other countries made it to space and invented mankind-altering things, but we - we have a lower class with an obesity problem. That's how good we got it.
Kim Jong Un is in a tough spot. Should he graze the DMZ with a bullet, an Old Testament level raining of hellfire will come down upon him. Should he open his society, a wave of heart disease awaits him in the form of food scientifically engineered to maximize your bliss. So, to paraphrase the Mexican drug cartel offer, do you want the lead or the cheeseburger?
-K
