Kim Jong Un

The South Korean army, to the extent it is not a paper tiger, may be overcome for the same reason that few in prominent office take the prospect of invasion seriously. Additionally, estimating prevailing sentiments of citizenry in the South is difficult. Would the populace immediately rush into the street for hand-to-hand combat? It is doubtful. For while Kim has indoctrinated his North that they are in a fight for existence, few ordinary South Koreans see the national schism that way. Moreover, Kim’s people are hungry, and a starving fanatical army will almost always win against a fattened logical one.

Despite the recent bellicosity”€”actually because of it”€”we can see that the above scenario will not unfold. A mad dash to Seoul might just succeed before the West could convince itself such a thing was in fact taking place, but it would have to be unexpected. Whatever else one can say of the incrementally increasing tensions, each day’s monotonous intensification is unsurprising.

So Kim may shoot off a few rockets (which will probably crash and almost certainly miss their mark) and he may shuffle his forces around the border region. Still for the most part there is nothing to worry about from any intelligent review of the situation.

This is not to say some people will not be harmed. To save face, Kim will probably have to sink a boat somewhere or shoot up another forlorn bit of sand, and there will be a dozen or more casualties. But it won”€™t be anything nearly big enough to impel South Korea into a full-scale war.

We can safely ignore all the high drama from the low intellects of our television sets. This is nothing more than political theater of the most repetitious sort. It gives coiffed anchors something to hyperventilate about and delirious lawmakers some reason to throw more funds to their lobbyists.

How can we be certain Kim Jong-un will do nothing? Because he constantly claims he will do something. There is no surer way to recognize a coward. Anyone who is serious about doing something doesn”€™t diagram it for you beforehand; he simply does it.