Saber Nuclear Rattlings From The Hermit Kingdom (North Korea)...

Saber Nuclear Rattlings From The Hermit Kingdom (North Korea)…

I will place no blame on either political party in these United states for our apparent dearth of Intelligence on Kim-Jong-Un, the young leader of North Korea who is currently and overtly threatening us with Nuclear annihilation - I take that position because both Democrat and Republican administrations alike have failed us miserable in this respect. North Korea is known as the Hermit Kingdom – defined as a society who has metaphorically and physically walled itself off from the rest of the world; and so, with that said, I can understand why the lack of intelligence on the young Kim-Jong-Un… but even I am privy to the fact that he was educated in Europe… surely some enterprising young analyst down at Langley could have come up with a scheme and someone to shadow him… and, moreover, befriend him while he was attending schooling in Switzerland – after all, Dennis Rodman befriended Kim-Jong-Un on a basketball junket years ago, which, recently accounted for the former basketball star being rewarded with a well publicized trip to the Hermit Kingdom.

Notwithstanding the Hermit Kingdom's designation, no country is truly and literally isolated because North Korea is a defacto surrogate of China… but for the life of me, I cannot figure out why the Chinese have not reined in Kim-Jong-Un, given the salient fact that most of North Korea’s food and energy come from China. The Chinese must know that it benefits them to prevent a war on the Korean Peninsula given the shared borders with North Korea - for any war will open the flood-gates of refugees … all of whom will be seeking shelter in China. Perhaps, the Chinese have not reined in young Kim-Jong-Un because they may not have the influence on him as the conventional wisdom says that they do… they too must not have a psychological work-up on young Kim to know what motivates him. We know Kim is a brutal dictator like his father before him and we may simply need to look at the dynamics of the school-yard bully or the Mob, or gang membership to know what Kim-Jong-Un is up to.

Those of us who have dealt with bullies before know that to gain a reputation… one must take down the current bully in power – Kim may be doing just so by seeing the United States as said bully and wanting to prove this to his father’s army seasoned generals or other family members who are jockeying for the dictatorial scepter to the Hermit Kingdom. This situation Kim is facing maybe akin to when we hear that a mobster or gang leader is gunned down, whereby it is normally followed by a spate of murders because other mobsters and gang bangers are vying for the leadership. The problem with the Kim-Jong-Un situation is that unlike the mobsters who are using conventional weapons to gain or secure their power… Kim has Nuclear weapons at his beckon call, and if we think that collateral damage from drive-bys are painful and unaccceptable… let us not even think about a Nuclear exchange between the United States and North Korea.

I hope that Kim-Jong-Un is only saber Nuclear rattling to secure incentives and succor to palliate the sanctions already bestowed on his struggling country by the United Nations… compelling some neutral country’s diplomats to broker peace talks that would result in both the United States and North Korea keeping their respective powders dry. Now is also the time to pressure China and articulate to them how important it is for them to influence its surrogate to behave… knowing that war would also threaten China’s economic march to hegemony. The truth is that I can posit all these avenues of peace and stability for both the United States and North and South Korea, but I am operating on the linear thought pattern that Kim-Jong-Un is a rational man – supposed he is not… this too we do not know. We can tout all day long our progress or advantage we may have in Artificial Intelligence gathering, but, it is rather apparent that none is better than having human Intelligence, which would have given us some relatively, reliable insight on Kim-Jong-Un.