North Korea seems hell-bent on provoking a renewal of war on the peninsula. The US should be especially wary that they will attempt to “validate” their nuclear weapons program, missile technology, and political posturing all in one fell swoop. How? If they truly have nuclear explosives (as opposed to nuclear weapons), one possibility would be to load one (or more) on a ship or ships, send the vessel to a US port, and detonate it. Timing it to the launch of a missile would be icing on the cake, but they could always claim that the missile was so stealthy that the US failed to detect the launch. They get credit for a nuclear attack on the US (or Japan or South Korea), credit for a successful missle program, credit for fooling the US intelligence agencies, etc. They also get (amazingly, in my mind) a measure of protection since the US would be hard-pressed to “prove” they did it – everything we do to prove they did it increases the extent to which it appears we regard them as a real threat and (perhaps more importantly) as an equal.

Caution: this analysis is based solely upon what I have read on the InterNet and in the newspaper. By at least one account, the cease-fire agreement which ended the Korean hostilities (meaning overt, armed conflict) in the 1950s was between North Korea and South Korea, the United States, and the United Nations (on whose behalf the US and other nations joined the conflict). If that is the case, then perhaps it is time for a member nation of the UN (preferably one not widely viewed as a US stooge) to introduce a resolution accepting the North Korean public disavowal of that cease-fire and declaring that a state of war now exists between North Korea and the United Nations. Properly equipped with provisions for maritime embargo, no-fly zone (including commercial flights), suspension of commerce, and denial of all forms of electronic communication along with freezing of all assets outside their boundaries, such a declaration could allow North Korea to discover the joys of being at war with the entire world. The Economist on-line today had an excellent analysis to support the thesis that it is time to show the North Koreans what happens when the world takes them seriously – I simply propose a mechanism for that demonstration.

Should they persist (and that, in my opinion, is highly probable), the UN could request that the US and other member states undertake pre-emptive or preventative actions such as destroying the missile claimed to be deployed on the sea coast (one salvo from the main batteries aboard the USS Missouri could do the job and show that the North Koreans don’t even warrant modern technologies to deny their aspirations).Should they carry out their threat to execute a nuclear strike on the US or allied nations, Well, the President has said he wants to draw down the US nuclear stockpile…