Can Rational Analysis Adequately Explain North Korea's Irrational Behavior

For a week, the world has watched with something like amusement as North Korean soldiers gear up for battle, covering their jeeps and trucks with camouflage netting. Newly painted signboards and posters call for "death to the US imperialists" and urge the people to fight with "arms, not words." The world's amusement at these war preparations and the military orders being issued by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to his generals and his million-man army is based on the "received" knowledge that a successful missile strike on US targets would be suicide for the outnumbered, out-powered North Korean regime. The increasing drumbeat of threats and provocations that seems to be bringing the region to the brink, according to the general analysis, is Pyongyang's way of forcing Washington to the negotiating table, pressuring the new president in Seoul to change policy on North Korea, and building unity inside the communist country without triggering a full-blown war. In July, it will the 60th anniversary of the armistice Korea and China signed with the US and the United Nations ending three years of fighting that cost millions of lives. The designated Demilitarized Zone has evolved into the most heavily guarded border in the world. Although it was not intended to be a permanent border, six decades later, North and South remain divided, with, so goes the logic, Pyongyang feeling abandoned by the South Koreans in the quest for reunification and threatened by the Americans. In the past 60 years, South Korea has changed from an agrarian society into the world's 15th largest economy while North Korea is losing its battle to get out of a Cold War time warp that has left it with a per capita income on par with sub-Saharan Africa. The Chinese left the Korean peninsula long ago. But, America has 38,000 troops in South Korea and more nearby in Japan. This week, South Korea and America have been showing off their military power in joint exercises that Pyongyang says is a rehearsal for invasion. The centerpiece was the flyover of a B2 stealth bomber that can carry the US Air Force's largest conventional bomb - a 30,000-pound super bunker buster - powerful enough to destroy North Korea's web of underground military tunnels. The threat is overt and some analysts ask if it is directed at Beijing, as well as Pyongyang. North Korea says it is prepared to strike if US actions continue. A photo distributed by North Korea's official Central News Agency shows Kim in a military operations room with maps detailing a "strike plan" in a very public show of supposedly sensitive military strategy. North Korea cites the US military threat as a key reason behind its need to build nuclear weapons, and has poured a large part of its small national budget into defense, science and technology. In December, scientists launched a satellite into space using a long-range rocket with technology that could be converted for missile use. In February, they tested an underground nuclear device, part of a program to build a bomb they can load on a missile capable of reaching the US. However, say experts, what North Korea really wants is legitimacy in the eyes of the US, and a peace treaty. Pyongyang also wants American troops off Korean soil, and the bombs and rockets are more of an expensive, dangerous safety blanket than real firepower, according to these analysts, who say that military sabre-rattling is the only real playing card North Korea has left, and the bait they hope will bring the Americans to the negotiating table. But, there is another take on North Korea's missile capabilities. Narushige Michishita, director of the Security and International Studies Program at Japan's National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, isn't convinced North Korea is capable of attacking Guam, Hawaii or the US mainland. He says Pyongyang hasn't successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile. HOWEVER, its medium-range Rodong missiles, with a range of about 800 miles (1,300 kilometers), are "operational and credible" and could reach US bases in Japan, he says. The more likely possibility is a smaller-scale incident, perhaps off the Koreas' western coast, that would not provoke the Americans to unleash their considerable firepower. For years, the waters off the west coast have been a battleground for naval skirmishes between the two Koreas because the North has never recognized the maritime border drawn by the UN. For months, the masterminds of North Korean propaganda have pinpointed this year's milestone Korean War anniversary as a prime time to play up Kim's military credibility as well as to push for a peace treaty. By creating the impression that a US attack is imminent, the regime can foster a sense of national unity and encourage the people to rally around their new leader. ~~~~~ What cannot be factored into any rational analysis of events in North Korea is the question of the rationality of either Kim Jong Un or his advisors and generals. It is not rational to threaten to attack America with nuclear weapons. It is not rational to hold giant military parades in which "cardboard" missiles are displayed as the real thing. It is not rational to order hundreds of thousands of students and soldiers into a Pyongyang square to shake guns and fists at America. And perhaps such a long history of irrational behavior should be a signal to the world that amusement is not the appropriate response. B2's and military readiness may be the better approach. ESPECIALLY since Kim Jong Il put North Korea on a war alert footing this afternoon - with missile launchers loaded, if indeed they exist and are operational.