I think I expressed this before: while the US is legally comitted by treaty to defend SK and Japan, and Japan has to go through difficult legal and emotional hoops to arm itself with nuclear weapons, NK is not crazy enough to launch against anyone because, obviously, it is the end of the regime if they do, and the NK pathological idiots have a keen sense of self-preservation, if not much else. This keen sense of self preservation will ironically protect the region if it is maintained and not challenged.
The US needs to react to the NKs with a big yawn...."so you've got a couple of nukes, eh? Congratulations, we'll make sure to send you a card. We happen to have thousands, and they are much, much bigger than yours, plus we can part Kim Jong Il's hair with the accuracy of our missiles, so don't do anything stupid, blokes, we have a President with an itchy trigger finger."
All of which makes the NKs a Chinese and Russian problem, but mostly Chinese as any NK nuclear insanity will bring back to the surface age old rivalries involving Koreans, Japanese, and Chinese. These ancient grudges are a bigger problem than the NKs, at the end of the day, even if the NKs serve only as catalysts for their return.
China needs to foment regime change in NK--the smartest thing it can do. It wouldg gather tons of prestige with the SKs, at the expense of the US, and put a damper on anynotion of a re-militarized Japan. |
