Well!!  There is so much news going on, it's hard to pick what to write about this day.  However, as the title of this post gives the subject away, we chose to chat about the latest North Korean temper tantrum.

We haven't been watching much TV news lately, so by chance we caught Fox News Special Report with Bret Baier tonight.  During the program Charles Krauthammer - one of our favorite political analysts - was asked for his opinion on the North Korean mess.  Kauthammer made a couple of points we'd like to echo.

1) American policy towards North Korea is a failure.  Mr Krauthammer suggested that the policy failure arcs over the last three Presidencies; Obama, Bush and Clinton, however, here we respectfully disagree.  American policy toward North Korea has been a failure since the armistice was signed July 27th, 1953.  One could argue that the armistice itself was a policy failure of sorts.  General MacArthur seemed to feel that way.  For two generations North Korea diplomacy has centered around two basic concepts:  incentives to promote desired behavior, and appeasement to promote desired behavior.  We might offer a third concept of economic sanctions, however, North Korea has amply demonstrated it's willingness to absorb any economic 'punishment' the international community of nations can lay upon it.  So much for sanctions.  So the policies of incentive and appeasement have failed miserably.  And while the Bush Administration's get tough anti/appeasement policy seemed to produce some promising results, for reasons not yet fully public, even this policy sputtered and stalled in the waning days of the Bush Administration.  The publicized reason given at the time was that North Korea wanted us to take their word for it that they were eliminating their WMD program, and we were strangely reluctant to do so.

2) North Korea is currently doing what it does best - throwing the equivalent of a childish temper tantrum in order to get attention, and get what it wants.  Ultimately, what the personality cult regime wants is survival, at the expense of it's own people.  And since it can't survive on it's own, under the best of circumstances, North Korea will always and forever need outside help to maintain this unacceptable status quo.  Mr Krauthammer suggests it's time to throw in the towel in a way, admit failure and arm west-friendly nations - particularly Japan - with nuclear weapons as a means of re-drawing the re-drawn balance of power map in the region, and as a way of incentivizing not the North Koreans, but the Chinese to step all-in to the game.  Krauthammer's got another good point here.  We can't go on pretending North Korean isn't a nuclear power, and we certainly can't bury the fact that North Korea is especially hostile to South Korea, the United States, and Japan in that order.

So what are civilized societies to do with a depraved increasing desperate personality cult regime, and it's crumbling prison-state?

Call their bluff.  Arm Japan and South Korea with nukes.  Deploy missile defense, and increase missile defense spending rather than eliminating it.

Over these last two generations, the nutso but very keenly observant North Koreans have learned that if you are an unstable regime, all you have to do to get what you want is to throw very carefully timed/planned tantrums.  It is very analogous to feeding the screaming toddler.  The child learns that screaming gets Mom and Dad's attention, so it screams more, until Mom and Dad finally figure it out and stop feeding the screaming.  It is precisely the same child psychology at work here.  Only we are not dealing with children, we are dealing with demented individuals with the power to kill hundreds of thousands if not millions of people.   Metaphorically speaking, you don't feed the crocodile hoping it will eat you last.  Instead you slay the crocodile, one way or another. 

North Korea didn't set off a nuke test because it's deranged ruling class were bored on a lazy Monday.  It set off the nuke because it wants to be fed - something.  What exactly that something is the public doesn't know, but is currently known to the US and other national governments involved in the stalled talks.  The firing of missiles and testing of weapons of mass destruction were executed on the day America pauses to remember its honored war dead, and that's no coincidence.  It's big bang diplomacy at it's most childishly transparent, and we should not play into the game.  Time to flip the bird to Kim Jong Sicko.

Arming Japan with nukes is a very controversial step, first because of Japan's quest for empire during World War II, committing unspeakable atrocities on it's conquered peoples along the way, and because of Japan's own deeply rooted psychosis against nuclear weapons, since they were the only nation on earth to-date who have ever seen first hand what these awful devices can do to civilian population centers.  While the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction may not work very well when the opposition doesn't really have a problem with seeing millions die, it's all we've got.  So like it or not, Japan and South Korea had better start acquiring nukes.  That's about the only thing we see that will spur the Chinese to meaningful action.  Otherwise, it's just another day in the Asian neighborhood.

Don't feed the screaming child.

(PS - We are well aware had we the misfortune of being born North Korean, that if we had the temerity to write this piece, we would likely be on our way to meet our maker right about now.  An American Memorial Day axiom: Freedom is not free.)