Is Kim Jong Un Mad Enough To Do It

[youngmafbog]

or is it just sabre rattling?

Don't look good to me.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21935342

[Gromit]

@ Zeuhl

You made me laugh.

[pdq1]

It is obvious N.Korea's actions are in retaliation to the sanctions put onto them by the West. Putting a starved rat in a corner and expecting it to sleek away is unthinkable. With beligerent nations like these maybe the hand of friendship works better than a new cold war.

[emmie]

they don't want our help, they want to be a sooooper power....

[LazyGun]

Hmm. Sanctions have only been applied in an effort to stop them developing nuclear weapons and as an incentive to get them to participate in diplomacy and negotiation with the other regional powers.

Seems to me any time this dynasty feels the need to trouser a few million dollars, or get some food aid to feed their own people, it is usually preceded by some sabre-rattling.

North and South Korea are still formally at war following the Korean War back in the 1950s.

Rather than spending time rattling sabres, I would far rather see them diverting resources into developing a sustainable agricultural programme so they can feed their population, rather than waste resources developing weapons of mass destruction and keeping a huge standing army.....

[jake-the-peg]

I think you may be over estimating North Korea's current nuclear capability.

Their tests were of a bomb of about 15 *kilotonnes* capability - that's about the same as the Nagaski bomb - you could cause damage over a couple of miles or so.

It would have to be deliverred with great accuracy

By comparison the UK's Trident warheads are about 10 times this in yield and our first thermo nuclear tests that you see on old TV pictures were about 1.2 *megatonnes*.

So at the moment N. Korea isn't really a threat to US territory

They are a threat to the Korean peninula and more significan'tly would be a threat if trouble started there andthe South and/or the US took it into their head to try to invade the North.

I rather suspect that the US and South Korea could easilly overcome conventional forces in the North but the North wouldn't hesitate to use nuclear weapons in their own territory if it was invaded and is a serious disincentive to such an invasion.

I rather think such empty threats to bomb the US are their way of reminding everybody that whilst they're an irritating gnatt to the US they have a couple of big teeth

[LazyGun]

A suggestion in this article that NK is so hard up, they are directing their ambassadors to go a drug- selling....

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-03/breaking-juche-north-koreas-underworld-diplomats?src=SOC&dom=fb