Kim is nuts, but that doesn’t mean he is incapable of being cunning. He has taken his measure of Obama and thinks he can push the envelope. It now remains to be seen if Hope-n-Change can develop a proper response. I’m pretty sure that more talking won’t work.

Kim is crazy enough that he is willing to play the “military action” card. He has little regard for the lives of his people, the price in blood isn’t a factor in his calculations outside of where he thinks we will crack due to casualties. He is pretty sure that the West doesn’t have the will and, after a few weeks of interdicting his sea-traffic will wander off as per the “no-fly” zones in Iraq. The worst feature of a UN Resolution is that they have the life-span of a fruit fly.

What needs to be done is the clear statement that we (ie the US, because nobody else really matters when it come to this kind of thing) will not tolerate this crack-pot playing with nukes and ICBMs. We will destroy any missle that we consider a threat and any facility that we think may be involved in nuke or missile production. This should be immediately followed by strikes against all of those targets. One carrier task force on each coast and some Aegis cruisers to interdict any Norko launches would probably be enough to do the job.