McCreary: NoKos acting unusually reckless

Pyongyang is provoking decisions, I suspect, that are beyond Kim Chong-il's comprehension.

Very troubling...

A government that departs in a major way from patterns of behavior it has followed for decades is not one that should be ignored.

This isn't a recommendation of a specific response to North Korean provocations, only a suggestion that dismissing the most recent developments as more boring bluster from a decrepit regime is imprudent. The closest consultations with the other four nations in the six-party group as to who is making decisions in Pyongyang and why are the first thing that needs to happen now.

Think of the weird things that can go on in an election year here. Kennedy's announced Missile Gap, where he publicly claimed he was going to build a whole lot of new missiles to be ready to hit the USSR. The various attempts at an October Surprise.

NK is going to have a change of government soon, and depending on who wins the prominent members of some factions might be killed. Unlike our elections it's deadly serious. To a large extent probably nobody's in charge, they're busy jockeying for position, and it isn't clear what they'll do while they get themselves organised.

If we knew enough about what was going on we could probably take advantage. Maybe maneuver them into two evenly-balanced factions that fight a full-scale civil war.

Or we could stage an invasion. First the propaganda war to soften them up. "The first thing we'll do, is we'll invade with mobile food kitchens. We'll feed anybody who comes to them. And then we'll bombard you with solar-powered radio/MP3 players, and we'll give you songs. And then we'll distribute clothing and new boots. You don't have to surrender, just come get a meal and new clothes. And if you resist too hard we'll fight back a little and then maybe we'll just pack up our food kitchens and supply centers and go home." Then we invade with food kitchens....

But failing some decisive action that we probably don't have adequate intelligence to carry out, I expect our best response is to be ready to make measured responses. If they hit us, hit tham back hard enough that the faction which did it doesn't feel like they got a victory. If possible try to make sure we hit back the faction that did it. We don't want it to look to them like the aggressive winner faction won something but then some other loser faction got clobbered.

Unless we actually want another korean war, we're better off to persuade them they lose by attacking us and then give them a chance to back down. Or maybe it's a good time to get into a third war. Say we took the southern half of north korea, and got a bunch of refugees, and left a small north korea to be a buffer state for china? That wouldn't be a terrible outcome, if we could get it without paying too high a price.

I'm sure our 25K soldiers in S. Korea feel the same as you about what's going on there.

Nothing to see. Can't blame Bush. Nuclear weapons test and multiple missile tests. No biggie. Might make Obama look silly. Repeal of a half-century old ceasefire. Move on. Aren't Michelle's arms great? Journalism rocks!