What's Really Happening with North Korea - Pocket Policy 1

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The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson patrolling the Pacific near the Korean Peninsula - 2017

I'll start this off with some good news - North Korea poses zero threat to US national security. North Korea does not have the military capability to launch any sort of worthwhile attack on the United States, and our military presence and partners in the region are infinitely more powerful than the Hermit Kingdom can ever dream of being.

If you're ever looking for a time to thank the Bush administration, look no further. Our military response to the disruptive Hussein regime showed hostile countries around the world that the United States has no issue indefinitely crippling your region, no matter how many dollars or lives it takes. It's what's stopping North Korea from launching the first strike - the threat and promise of an absolutely devastating US military response.

Then why is North Korea launching all of these weapons all of a sudden? Think of it as a Bar Mitzvah for their nuclear arsenal. After three decades of delayed nuclear maturity, North Korea's balls finally dropped, and now it's time time to celebrate. But are they really that stupid? Does the Kim regime actually believe that detonating a couple of bombs is going to scare the US and its allies into accepting it, or is something much larger at play here?

The Kim regime is on it's last leg. After a suspected military coup and growing disconcert within its borders, the Kim regime is starting to lose face with it's people. Their barrage of weapons tests is being used as propaganda to unite the masses against their sworn and mortal enemy - The United States of America. The Kim regime is using this hate to distract the people from the revolution they've been dying to have, but we already know this. It's why we're not responding.

Why don't we just sanction the North Korean economy to death? We very easily could - but if the US enacts the certainly fatal oil sanctions on Kim's regime, who knows what type of missiles they'll start chucking at Seoul? After 60 years in power, you gotta go out with a BANG!

So what do we do now? We wait, either for the North Korean regime to tumble or for them to do something extremely stupid. What we don't do is respond, and we especially don't launch the first strike. So far, it seems to be working, and I'm confident it'll continue to do so.

-- Daniel