'..I have tremendous respect for your insight...'
Why, thank you! Personally, I think I'm an angry disenfranchised crank who usually advocates emptying out the magazine as the ne plus ultra cure all for life's little problems...if you kill the head. This is the disconnect I have with using force. I think we're all way too easy when it comes to killing the poor, starving schmucks enslaved by these despots as a way to get at the despots, though peasant complacency enables the despot. The plutocrats argument that you can't just kill the despot in person so you'll have somebody to negotiate with later is just silly. They play games, we pay in blood. Grumble...
I don't trust that russia and china will throw fat little bad hair under the bus if he goes off the reservation. If we go at the norks, viz: war, it's an irresistible chance to militarily and politically humiliate the US. They could, and I think, would use the norks as a tool to this end. Say one thing and do another is a standard marxist instrument. Both have a big axe to grind, and frankly, the US is going in dumb. Don't kid youselves, the US military is in sad shape. Strategic reserves are nil, there is an institutional aversion to risk, these big ticket silver-bullets don't work as advertised and only function at all because the vendors are hot-patching the crap to hold the guts in. The entire force structure revolves around killing ones and two's of mooks armed with kalashnilovs and a mule. We put everything out on the middle of a big, fixed bullseye with the expectation that the other guy isn't just going to drop a lot of missiles on the airbase or dockyard, or barracks. How many casualties is the US public going to tolerate, bearing in mind that they haven't fought a real war from a severely depleted material position. The DPRK may be something of a coal- fired stalinist joke, but it's still a lot of armed moolies to kill in bad, bad terrain at the end of a long logistics line. They can probably pull it off, but russia and china are going to bleed 'em, bad. I think I can see overlooking an above ground test out in the pacific with just more bellowing and sanctions.
Kimmie has little to gain by risking one of his expensive toys in a test that might fail spectacularly. He also has little to gain by getting into a shooting match. He has more to gain by using his toys as political blackmail. There's not a good solution to any of this mess.
I do, however, think some of social technicians responsible for digging this giant hole should be shot as an example-jimmie, bubba, the NSC and most of the puzzle palace denizens would be a good start.
So, we wait and see.
The important thing to remember is, some very wealthy people get to enrich themselves further at our expense.
Now, somebody tell this windy A-hole to shut up...
