Well, how about a blockade of the NK coast? Starve them out. With China as a border nation, this won't work either, if the Chinese come to their support. I would bet on that.

When I suggested a blockade, I wasn't suggesting starving them out. The Gargoyle is already doing that without our help. Matter of fact, I'd suggest allowing food shipments in, once identified as such. Such a blocade would, though, as I suggest, deal with the fear of that rocketing technology ending up in the hands of the iranians, or the Syrians.

Hm?

I'd agree if it were 57-43, although that's still a landslide in an election. But when it's 57-15-28, I'd call that overwhelming. The fers outnumber the agins almost 4-to-1!

Fair enough.

Blowing things up and killing people in other countries to punish them for behavior we disapprove of is almost a definition of war.

I disagree. My scenario of a limited strike on the launch pad is less than what Clinton did in Sudan.

They could, say, detonate a nuke in South Korea.

They'd never do this. Nor a conventional invasion. They know they'd be committing suicide. The guy's crazy, but he's not stupid. I think their possible responses to such an action are very limited - maybe pull out of the latest (meaningless) talks?

Another scenario occurred to me. That of decapitation of the NK regime. I am not convinced that we could find the place and time where Kim Jong and son were both present, along with significant others, and be able to place a weapon on that spot before the attempt is detected and the principals disappear. I have in mind that reviewing stand where Kim seems to enjoy watching his army goosestep by...

A long range missile with a conventional warhead would do the trick, but that is a sure step to war. A heavy mortar in a truck mounting might be viable too, since they can be quite accurate, have a silent descent phase, and do have considerable range. That awning over the review stand, however, looks suspiciously like a painted steel sheet of armor protecting Kim from such an overhead attack.

Oh well!

Your comments are well taken.

Blowing things up and killing people in other countries to punish them for behavior we disapprove of is almost a definition of war.

Military action, however, would seem to include a blockade. Not only would that help the situation from the perspective of getting this errant dog back to heel, it would also allow us to monitor the aforementioned buyers of rocket technology.

The Gargoyle doesn't strike me as having any more in the way of wisdom than our Iranian freinds. On that basis, and a lot of others we well, I suggest that if he actually had the ability to draw swords, he would.

I'd agree if it were 57-43, although that's still a landslide in an election. But when it's 57-15-28, I'd call that overwhelming. The fers outnumber the agins almost 4-to-1!

Agreement. I would also add the political context of nearly everything being as close on 50/50 as no matter. When the results swing that far for any topic, it's remarkable, anymore.

Rattling a sabre makes noise. Drawing it doesn't.

There's a line delivered in the movie Sanjuro by an old woman to a young samurai:

The very best swords, she says, stay in their sheaths.

Blowing things up and killing people in other countries to punish them for behavior we disapprove of is almost a definition of war.

I kvetched about this earlier today. Yes, it's war. When armies shoot people or blow them up, it's war. When our army breaks their stuff, it's war.

Honestly, I blame the Congress for the fuzziness on when it is or is not a war. They need either to approve and support or disapprove and prevent.

We are engaging organizations of this ilk in Iraq for the moment, and in Afghanistan more seriously, with a careful eye on the Pakistani nuclear capabilities.

We are not engaging Iran, and we are not engaging N. Korea with fire in our bellies. There seems to be one-sided detente now in both cases, while our new President tries to find a non-violent means to solve the problem. This is something that most of the last three or four Presidents have tried, largely with the same crowd of foreign leaders, without any visible signs of real success.

Whatever else we think should be done, nothing will happen until the current diplomatic string runs out in each case, perhaps forcing us to consider diplomacy by other means. This presents the opponents here with cover for development of their capabilities for the next few years, at least. This time frame would appear to be sufficient for both nations to acquire and perfect nuclear weapon capabilities.

Personally, I cannot believe that the Iranian case will go too much further without a hard response from the Israelis, which will almost instantly involve the US as well, whether we want it or not. Here is a situation where a foreign nation, Israel, will control to a great degree what we do about Iran in the next year or so.

N. Korea is a different case. We have no surrogate that is ready, willing, and able to go in to defang NK. Perhaps Obama will offer them yet another trillion or two newly printed US dollars to cease and desist with the nukes. Who knows? If that fails, Obama will have put us in a box that appears to require military action of some type to escape with a whole skin.

There seem to be no simple and low-casualty military solutions to be pursued. We know well how they fight on their ground from the Korean Conflict. We also know that the NK is able to draw substantial military support from both Russia and China, wich makes a ground war within NK virtually unthinkable for us today.

That leaves air strikes as a possible solution. One needs to know where to strike for this to succeed, and I am not clear whether we have adequate target information on NK nuclear facilities. Lacking such information, there are few options available to us.

A blanket attack with nukes on every likely mountaintop in NK in order to cascade the mountains down onto every entry point might be feasibe. But, this would require a large number of nuclear explosions, with fallout that would reach Japan in a short while, which is not so good. It is not clear to me whether an EMP device or two would solve the problem underground, and not disrupt Japan or SK as well.

Threatening to bomb anything standing in NK cities is yet another blanket type approach. Given the nature of the regime, and its obliviousness to the suffering of the people, such a move would not achieve what we want, and would redound on us from a humaintarian view.

Well, how about a blockade of the NK coast? Starve them out. With China as a border nation, this won't work either, if the Chinese come to their support. I would bet on that.

So we appear to be stymied in all but the bribery approach, and that is looking weaker and weaker as time goes by, especially as the dollar is predicted to tank a lot further in the near term.

We need some devine guidance!

But, one out of two ain't bad!

I don't think 57% makes an "overwhelming majority of Americans,"

I'd agree if it were 57-43, although that's still a landslide in an election. But when it's 57-15-28, I'd call that overwhelming. The fers outnumber the agins almost 4-to-1!

nor does "a military response" equate to "going to war."

Blowing things up and killing people in other countries to punish them for behavior we disapprove of is almost a definition of war.

What exactly do we fear the NORKs would do to retaliate? Or are we worried about what some others would do? The Chinese? Russians?

They could, say, detonate a nuke in South Korea.

How would any alleged "foreign policy setback this weekend" NOT have the president at the reins?

No 'alleged' about it, Rick. Indeed, if I'm Rahm Emmanuel, I'm breating a harried sigh of releif... the Italian Disaster will take much of the Obama disaster off the tube for the next couple cycles at least.

Secondly, I word it that way to make allowences for lower level operatives to foul things up, as so often happens. In this case, though Obama's direct involvement was more overt, and the screwups thereby cannot be explained by anything but a foulup at the top.

And lastly, I'm not sure I agree with this either: "Most of the experts believe the consequences of a military attack on the nuclear-armed power would be far worse than doing nothing." What would be the potential consequences of a strike of a half dozen cruise missiles to destroy the launch pad used for this NORK missile launch? The loss of life would be minimal if any. The damage would be minor. The message would be significant.

What exactly do we fear the NORKs would do to retaliate? Or are we worried about what some others would do? The Chinese? Russians?

I'm just curious what some of these "consequences" you speak of might be.