North Korea and Brinkmanship

I haven't been able to blog in a while; mostly a combination of forgetfulness and time constraints. But I wanted to make a quick mention on this topic:

In the past days, North Korea has declared itself free of the moratorium it agreed to on launching ballistic missiles and has readied a missile for a test flight. It is not clear what the flight path would be, but as expected, this move has drawn international outrage here, here, and here, most notably from the US, Japan, China, and Australia.

The Captain speaks:

The Taepodong-2 missile has Alaska in easy reach for a direct targeting profile. Depending on the configuration used, however, the Taepodong-2 can hit targets in the continental US using a ballistic polar route for its flight. The pending launch has the US and Japan on high alert. Without a doubt, if the rocket fires, the US will have no choice but to respond in some forceful manner -- and if we're lucky, it will only be a successful demonstration of the missile defense system.

So North Korea hasn't been in the spotlight in a while, and suddenly they decide to fuel their missile for a test launch. What do they want? Well, soon after the US decided to activate their missile defense system, Kim Jong-Il decides he wants to talk.

I'll just throw out a guess here. Kim Jong-Il thinks he can blackmail the US into giving him more stuff(aid, money, whatever), using his Taepodong missile as leverage. What we should do is bomb this guy to the Stone Age, except he would then destroy South Korea. But something's definitely got to be done about this, and it should be sooner rather than later.