Normally NK shooting their laughable rockets into the sea or using jumper-cables and equipment from my childhood Erector sets to work on nuclear plants (I mean weapons) is standard 2 to 3 fare on the RIA scale due to NK saber-rattling periodically to stay in the news due to small-penis syndrome and to emotionally blackmail South Korea and its allies to keep food/bribes coming their way.

Things are a little different. Jong-Il is looking weaker and has named a younger son successor (sp?) History tells us that dictatorships (such as the religious cult Disneyland of the "Dear Leader") wish to display serious shows of strength during power transfers to keep the lemmings in line. Transfers of power are when dictatorships are at their weakest hence NK's stamping of their feet and showing off their toys to the world. . .breaking the UN rules of the cease-fire works perfectly into their little display of machismo. Throw in the captured journalists for PR fare and you have a tailor-made display of internal strength to the citizens to remind them of their 'duties' to the nation/party/dear leader.

The traditional American press coverage of NK events usually borders on the laughable - this one has been somewhat better. It is a solid 4 as an event of 2009 because some serious rules have been broken and South Korea (which goes through occassional emotional spasms of sympathies for the imprisoned citizens of the North) has displayed a diminishing patience for this Orwellian-state whose entire decision-making process is based on fear, tyranny, and lies.

About as exciting as Booger winning the burping contest on 'Revenge of the Nerds.' But to be serious, North Korea is so weak, and there are so many against it, that even if it posed a major threat, it would be wiped out as fast as you can read this review (stop now if you went back to read about Booger from 'Revenge of the Nerds.')

Shows that North Korea is desperate for international attention and does so by intimidating its neighbors, especially South Korea. Of course, as Magellan said, the Korean war is still de-facto ongoing because no permanent peace treaty ever occurred. But North Korea wouldn't want to commit suicide by provoking the South and/or Japan. It's military may be large, but is in very poor shape compared to Japan's, America's and South Korea's. North Korea might want to think twice before doing anything else thats stupid, otherwise we could witness US tanks rolling across Pyongyang real soon.

Significant in its naked defiance of the UN and its meaningless resolutions and weak resolve. The narrative above makes it look like the UN is somehow a formidable foe but recent history ought to convince anyone that the current UN configuration is as failed a model as the US auto companies/UAW model, but somehow our government has spent billions and billions to save and prolong it, as they will the North Korea/UN model, and it will fail just as pathetically.

The combination of inexperience and volcanic arrogance do not bode well for western civilization as Obama "sells" all viewers (successfully in some cases) that he is a big time international negotiator, but his skill seems to be delivering apologies to people who expect an apology but intend to yield nothing in exchange. And with the arrogant, tough-talking Hillary as his Secretary of State, we seem destined to alienate both friend and foe, as her primary skill seems to be talking tough at the wrong times to the wrong people and folding every good hand she is dealt.

North Korea will be the first major failure (diplomatically) of the Obama administration but you'll have as much trouble getting information about it as you do the Tiller killer. Nobody in the press wants to be seen chronicling anything resembling ineptness on the part of the Obama admin. They are much too busy calling for criminal trials for the previous administration. Enjoy your hope and change.

The North Koreans continue to play games with the United States and the rest of the world. What else is new. But I have two theories that might explain their recent actions:

1. They're desperately trying to normalize relations with the West (at least as much as a Stalinist hermit kingdom can.)

Key to understanding North Korea's belligerence is the fact that the Korean War never actually ended. A truce was declared, but no formal agreement ending the conflict was signed. South Korea also never signed the armistice, so both sides are technically still at war. Indeed, the "Korea Question", as Dwight Eisenhower put it in the 1952 Presidential Race, remains unsolved after 57 years.

We can't approach it militarily, lest we choose to embroil all of East Asia in a continental war that will really pin the US and Japan against China. The other choice is negotiation. But there are problems with this too. First of all, the US insists on having all the regional powers in on the negotiations (the so called Six-Party talks), but North Korea wants to deal directly with Washington without the others in the middle. And of course, we do continue to occupy in part South Korea after all these years.

2. The North Koreans are quietly facing a succession crisis. Kim Jong Il suffered a stroke this past summer. Some believe that he's incapacitated to the point that he's no longer capable of making decisions. Given this, you have to wonder just who's controlling North Korea and its nuclear program. And if Kim is incapacitated, just who will we be negotiating with such we decide to pursue that option? Most importantly, who are the players that are jockeying to take over after Kim passes. Will it be a hard-liner or a pragmatist?

Either way, every regime, no matter how tyrranical, depends to a large extent on the consent of the people. What keeps the North Korean people in line is their government's propaganda that foreign occupation by the US and her allies is always just around the corner. The fact that their police state squashes all dissent also has something to do with it too. That existential threat keeps the people on the side of the regime. Draconian economic sanctions strengthen this perception.

In spite of all the hysteria surrounding North Korea's nukes, and their dubious assertions that they can launch a anti-ballistic missile at Alaska or even Los Angeles, the reality is that the US represents a more credible threat to them than they do to us. That, in and of itself gives us the advantage. North Korea's nuclear program is primitive. The United States however could wipe them off the face of the map--we have that option on the table, they don't. This really explains their crazy behavior. The North Koreans are actually a lot like suicide bombers who cannot possibly hope to defeat their enemy in conventional warfare; yet there is a difference: North Korea must convince the world that they are ready and willing to strike, without actually doing so because a military conflict will deprive them of power. However they must keep the threat alive in order to keep the population in line.

So now we ask the question: what do we do about this? No one really knows what course North Korea is going to take. The leadership is erratic and possibly even in transition. Some evidence suggests that hard liners are now calling the shots, and they wouldn't mind taking the country to war, even if it's not the most rational path for them. The only rational policy in my view is to avoid provocations at all costs. Nothing justifies going to war with these people and it is unlikely that the North Koreans are so out of it that they might launch a first strike at South Korea. I wouldn't rule out a strike against Japan though, but I don't think that's a likely outcome either.

The US does hold one trump card that requires no action on our part; the inherent instability of the North Korean regime. No matter how much they inveigh against the "Western plot" against North Korea's independence, the regime itself is the real obstacle blocking that country's progress forward. I've always believed that North Korea will eventually collapse from within. It will likely take a succession crisis to weaken the state and that will provide the necessary impetus for change. The famine is so bad in North Korea that people are eating the bark off of trees just to live. I'd say just leave them alone. Trying to force the North Koreans to give up their nuclear program only breeds more defiance on their part. You take away the bogeyman, and you take away the North Korean government's raison d'etre. Without the fear factor, the justification for the police state becomes moot, and the people will rise against the government.

It's a bit of an unorthodox approach, but nothing else has worked thus far.

On the one hand, this could be seen as another example of saber-rattling by an unstable regime, reacting to the international censure from its missile test earlier in the year. In that regard, it is alarming, but not altogether surprising. It is also somewhat alarming that North Korea has announced that it is abandoning the armistice that ended the Korean War in 1953, but this too can be seen as posturing, although it can't be cavalierly dismissed.

What I find troubling, however, is the U.S. diplomatic response. I've seen a lot of commentary from Washington, be it think-tanks or the government that essentially boils down to "China can do more to pressure the North Koreans." It seems like the U.S. wants to outsource not only jobs to China, but its diplomacy as well.

Lets look at this for a moment. While China has no great desire to see a nuclear power in North Korea, it has a much stronger interest in maintaining Kim Jong-Il's regime. This is because is if North Korea collapses, a few things happen which are not in the interest of the folks running the show in Beijing.

Firstly, if North Korea collapsed, about two million people will rush into north-east China as refugees, creating immense stress on China's poor infrastructure. Secondly, South Korea has a huge investment in China, billions upon billions of dollars. It would in all likelihood, go home to go into building a unified country. Note that China is South Korea's biggest trading partner.

Thirdly, China will be faced with a decision of whether or not to send the People's Liberation Army into the peninsula, raising the dangerous issue of what happens if they meet South Korean or U.S. troops heading north. Fourth, a united Korea would change China's geopolitical position, and not in a positive way. Right now, Beijing has a Communist buffer state on their border. A nutcase state, but at least a Communist one.

Fifth, a collapse would spell an end to Chinese attempts to turn North Korea into an economic vassal state. Currently any resource or industry with the chance of showing a profit is the target of Chinese investment, and a collapse would likely mean that Chinese firms would lose out to the South Koreans. Sixth, what happens to the large ethnic Korean population living on the Chinese side of the North Korean border if unification occurs. Do they start thinking in terms of a "Greater Korea?"

Thus, with a united, capitalist, nominally democratic Korean peninsula, China has a number of problems, and therefore its diplomatic aims in the region are by no means in concordance with those of the U.S. and its allies. If Beijing sees the issue as a choice between a nuclear armed North Korea, and no North Korea at all, they will certainly choose the former.

Therefore, U.S. calls on China to "do more" about Kim's excesses are likely to fall on, if not deaf, at least somewhat unwilling ears. My guess is that China will encourage more talks, and keep the situation percolating but (in the context of the region) relatively stable.

I don't know what the U.S. diplomatic response to this latest created crisis in Pyongyang should be, but I do know it shouldn't be to download it on the Peoples Republic of China.

For some time there have been six party (U.S., North and South Korea, China, Japan and Russia) talks. After the response of the UN Security Council to its April missile test, North Korea announced its withdrawal from the talks, although that too can be seen as posturing and need not be taken as an absolute final word. The talks, which had been going on for years had largely been perfunctory between the North Koreans and everyone except the U.S.

In late April, after the North Korean missile test, Obama named Kurt Campbell, former deputy assistant secretary of defense, to the post of assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs, the key position for handling U.S. policy toward North Korea. Campbell's nomination has not yet been approved by the U.S. Senate. With the latest U.S. government policy toward North Korea not finalized, the Obama administration is still unable to present a clear direction over how to proceed.

It is possible that the test will accelerate moves within the U.S. administration to search for ways to break the deadlock by holding direct talks with North Korea. In 1994, under the Agreed Framework between the U.S. and North Korea, even though Japan was not party to the agreement it ended up having to promise assistance for the provision of light-water nuclear reactors to North Korea and shoulder a huge proportion of the cost involved. But that framework collapsed and the money spent by Japan was ultimately wasted. Japan is unlikely to enter into another such agreement between the Washington and Pyongyang.

An intriguing diplomatic puzzle, and one that looks likely to provide a test of the Obama administration's ability (or lack thereof) to deal with complex foreign policy issues.