One might argue the title “World’s Strangest Nuclear Basket Case” should have been retired with the Soviet Union, that curious amalgam of failed philosophy, wacky economics and geography that began to decay just as soon as it was cobbled together.
No. The new titleholder is North Korea.
Although Moscow was always pathetic, we noted each nuclear test, watched the trajectories of every single Soviet missile launch and sat, strangely nervous, here in America waiting for the worst to fall on us from the threatening skies.
The Russians played along too.
They had nothing to offer to the world other than caviar for export, very bad vibes and alliances that opened up conventional weapons floodgates to fraternal revolutionary pals in the Third World just as soon as they put up pictures of Lenin, Marx and Engels.
Everyone wanted AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades, but no one actually wanted to be the Soviet Union.
Not even the Soviet Union.
Meanwhile, we constructed the world’s most accurate and dependable nuclear arsenal, emphasized its awesome power at every opportunity and had going for us the fact that, after all, we had actually used the weapon twice on the Japanese, so we were not shy. Because of all of that, no one ever wanted to fool with the United States. There were regional proxy wars, of course, lots of saber rattling and an abundance of high-level name-calling.
But pushing the button would have been fatal and, perhaps from the Cuban Missile Crisis (probably our closest brush with the end of the world) onward, everyone knew it. All of that is replaced now by a strange, multipolar world that is as ideological and threatening as ever, with troubling wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and uppity despots everywhere eager to take whatever little bite they can get out of the United States.
Which brings us again to North Korea, a nation that cannot feed itself and that exists in the shadow of a modern dynasty that would be ludicrous were it not for its aggressive behavior and abundant craziness.
North Korea explodes a small nuclear bomb, rattling sensors all over the world, and off we go to the 1950s again, complete with headlines about the North Korean “threat” and lots of worrying and hand-wringing.
I’m having trouble understanding this, and maybe you are too.
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You need a rocket to shoot with, first, and the North Koreans have not been doing well at this. This is no consolation for Japan, South Korea or anyone else in the region who might be within primitive rocket distance of Kim Jong Il, who is playing this weapons test for all it is worth.
And even if you shoot it at us, or at any of our friends, what you get in return is obliteration.
It simply does not pay to play nuclear dice with the United States. We are bigger. Better. Badder.
It remains one of the things we do immensely well, with great accuracy and awesome power.
It would not be survivable.
So why is this North Korean troublemaker doing this just now?
Two reasons, I suspect.
First, because he can. Second, it’s all he has.
Let’s turn the book back a few pages. No one wanted to be Russia, right? Well, no one really wants to be North Korea, not at all on the worst day of the year.
But this is a great time to fool with the United States. Our wars are not going well. Our president is no longer popular. Our options for response are severely limited.
We are not in a good position to negotiate, even with this strange North Korean leader.
So he scares the bejabbers out of everyone in the region and looks like he is thumbing his nose at the most powerful nation in the world.
What does he get out of that?
My guess would be that Kim Jong Il is not a strong leader, that he is actually just one smart general away from taking a very hard walk into history. He rules through repression, a classic totalitarian’s tactic, and survives on handouts from neighbors who view him with great suspicion.
What he needs, just as what the Russians needed to justify their incompetence and secure themselves in their rotting empire, is a grand outside threat.
That would be us. The more we respond to the nuke test (assuming that’s what it was) the more North Korea needs their living god-man with his hand on the helm to protect them from big, bad us.
Having demonized the United States since the great police action, people are ready to hear the worst about us.
I think Kim Jong Il wants something. It has nothing to do with nuclear weapons, which he may well not have and can’t use even if he does. He wants to scare it out of us.
After all, his nation needs everything.
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