War and Conflict Journal

North Korea continues to make threatening announcements and conduct threatening actions since the detonation a nuclear device on May 23.  Since conducting that nuclear test, the Communist dictatorship has launched at least six short-range missiles into the sea, and made very belligerent, (even for North Korea!) threats and comments.  On May 27, 2009, North Korea threatened to attack South Korea if ships from the North are searched as part a U.S.-led effort to stop vessels suspected of carrying missiles or weapons of mass destruction (WOMDs). North Korea also declared the truce that ended the Korean War in 1953 as invalid.  South Korea decided to join the international effort to search North Korean vessels suspected of carrying missiles or WOMDs.  South Korea had refrained from doing so in the past, but with the Northern nuclear test on May 23, the situation changed and the South decided to send a message to the North.

Also unusual in the world reaction to this North Korean nuclear test, is the public condemnation of the North by the closest things it has to friends; China and Russia.

Many analysts are saying that this is mere saber-rattling by Kim Jong-Il, just as in the past, and that things will quiet down, especially if the world tries to pay the North off to keep quiet for a while.  While that is the most likely scenario, given past history, it should also be noted that absolute dictatorships often make very bad decisions in the case of war and peace.  Hitler made several very unwise decisions that led to the destruction of Germany.  Saddam Hussein thought Iran would be a soft target in the throes of its violent revolution, only to end up with an eight-year war and hundreds of thousands of dead.  And Saddam also thought he could gobble up Kuwait without any fuss.  Oh, and he really did not expect George W. Bush to invade in 2003.  And those Generals in Argentina who believed the British would never fight for a few cold, remote islands in the South Atlantic.  In each case, the dictators in question ended up out of power, and, in the cases of Hitler and Saddam, ended up dead because they miscalculated the results of starting wars.

The point here is, that while the world thinks that the North Korean leaders will not start a fight they cannot win; they may actually think they CAN win.  Remember, Obama is a new president, untested in the eyes of much of the world, and the U.S. IS in the middle of two major wars.  When the North Koreans attacked and seized the American ship, the USS Pueblo in the late 1960s, the U.S. was in the middle of the Vietnam War.  North Korea gambled correctly, and no American military action against North Korea took place as a result.  If Kim Jong-Il is looking at history as a guide, he may be looking at how his father embarrassed the Americans, not how Hitler, Saddam, and the Argentine Junta ended up!

For more information on this topic, go to:

http://www.historyguy.com/korean_nuclear_crisis.htm

and

http://www.historyguy.com/korean_border_conflicts.htm