With dictators the threat of foreign invasion is a time-tested pretext to camouflage their one-man rule, and nowhere has it worked so successfully as in North Korea. From grandfather to grandson, the three Kims portrayed their country as being under siege and won the people's support by building a formidable war machine. For decades they amassed troops on the Korean Demilitarized Zone, as if North Korea was about to be attacked by South Korea. Then they started building nuclear weapons and missiles, telling their people that without these armaments North Korea would in danger of invasion by the United States, which has stationed some 30,000 troops on the other side of the DMZ. And among the Kims, the grandson and present ruler Kim Jong-un, happens to be expert in selling the fear of invasion by the United States and its regional allies. Not that no work was done in developing the nuclear potential and long-range delivery system. But it is under the direct supervision of young Kim Jong-un that dramatic progress has been made. In response to the American threat to knock out Pyongyang's nuclear teeth, Kim responded he would reduce the United States "to ashes." Of course it was a hollow threat. On Friday, North Korea launched a nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile which, if flown horizontally, could reach the US mainland. Its flight data suggests that cities like Los Angeles were within this solid-fuel ballistic missile. It had by now been a challenge to regional security, particularly to South Korea and Japan. President Trump, who wanted to be invited by "smart cookie" is furious. Washington says time has come to take action. The United States and South Korea conducted a live-fire exercise and the US flew two supersonic B-1B jets over the Korean Peninsula.
The South Korean capital Seoul is within the range of hundreds of long-range artillery pieces of North Korea. Even in a conventional conflict, the city is under direct threat. When President Moon Jae-in took over in May, he rejected the American offer to station the American anti-missile system THAAD in his country. He was also not indifferent to Chinese concerns over the proposed deployment. Instead, the US is now developing a $11-billion garrison away from the South Korean capital and the DMZ. Kim Jong-un is not likely to be deterred and give up on his appetite for advanced missiles and greater-yield nuclear weapons. He is also not under international pressure. President Trump, who was optimistic following his meeting with President Xi Jinping that China would persuade Pyongyang to shut its non-conventional weaponry, is now "very disappointed." In a twitter message he said: "our foolish past leaders have allowed them (the Chinese) to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet they do nothing for use with North Korea, just talk." Russia did not toe the American line either. It blocked a UN Security Council resolution condemning North Korea's missile tests. Pakistan is one of the countries which have opposed this tension-raising development: remaining indifferent could bring to life the age-old accusations that Islamabad had given nuclear technology to North Korea. With China and Russia not supporting the American moves, it is nearly impossible that the Security Council would be able to condemn Kim's march forward to obtain more devastating nuclear weaponry. The only way out of the imbroglio is to outlaw nuclear weapons and ICBMs by evolving an international consensus on complete non-proliferation. It is morally problematic to defend some for having nuclear weapons and condemn others for achieving that capability.
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