While there are questions about how successful the North Korean nuclear test was, John's point at OpFor remains pertinent:
Hopefully the test goes as well as North Korea's 7 dud barrage that was launched on the 4th of July this year. But if their nuke test is successful, try to remember that building a nuke is one thing, building one small enough to be mated to a delivery system that ACTUALLY WORKS is another matter altogether.
However, even assuming that this first test was only partially successful, it is clear that this sets the clock ticking. There are two crucially important questions to address in terms of a new Nation joining the Nuclear Club.
1) Do they now have the ability to deliver their nuclear warheads?
2) Do they have the intention to deliver their nuclear warheads?
The first question is the easier question. Most indications are that the North Koreans cannot yet put their nuclear warheads on top of their missiles and deliver them to any other country. Hoverer there are signs that the ability to use these weapons and the intention to use these weapons can meet in the next few months to years and there is the danger.
I have written before about Malignant Narcissism. In Part III of my series on Narcissism, Malignant Narcissism, and Paranoia, I made the point that the Malignant Narcissist does not see other people as having any intrinsic value as human beings; the sum total of their worth lies in how they can support the compensatory grandiosity of the Malignant Narcissist:
In more severe cases, the existence of the other person’s mind and life is simply of no consequence. For the Malignant Narcissist, other people are mere props in the pageantry of their lives. A tyrant can throw someone into a shredding machine without a second thought because the victim only matters in relation to how he can support the grandiosity of the tyrant; beyond that, he is faceless, nameless, worthless. It was no accident that Saddam Hussein was surrounded by sycophants who all grew mustaches to look just like him.
It is sadly common to see spurned lovers (almost always men) who murder their ex-girlfriend or wife, sometimes along with all their children, and then take their own life. In such cases, the rejection by their ex is such a powerful humiliation that they literally cannot survive it. Since their self esteem depends on the adulation of the other, once they lose such adulation, their self esteem crumbles and despair and rage are the residue. In such a state, life is not worth living and the object who created their despair (in their limited understanding of their own internal state) must be destroyed as well. This is an everyday horror which we read about in the papers and see reported on our TVs on a regular basis.
When a Malignant Narcissist gains control of a nation state, the stakes are raised exponentially. Their people only exist to support their grandiosity which is why the Iranian Mullahs could use children to clear mine fields and Saddam Hussein had no qualms about using poison gas to kill Kurdish women and children for no possible military or strategic objective.
The greatest danger with a system which is essentially a reflection of the Malignant Narcissism of the cult like leader who runs it is that they identify the existence (and glory) of the state with themselves. Thus the Third Reich was inseparable from Adolf Hitler. A threat to the state was a threat to the leader and vice versa. Kim cannot differentiate the glory of the state of North Korea from his own person; North Korea without him is unthinkable. If he fears he is going to lose power there is literally no reason for him to refrain from using his weapons of mass destruction. As far as the Malignant Narcissist is concerned, when they die (a concept that is actually impossible for them to fully accept) the world dies. (The exception occurs if they are able to instill some of their narcissism in the next generation; then they can tolerate the idea of passing on their kingdom to their sons.) If Kim becomes convinced he is going to be destroyed, the entire world must be made to suffer for his pain.
The time to address this is before he obtains the capacity to project his power. Apparently, according to Austin Bay, the Chinese are more fearful of North Korean chaos than of North Korean Nukes, perhaps denying the risk of their use when the inevitable happens, or perhaps believing they will be spared the fallout of such a disaster.
Hugh Hewitt quotes from an Atlantic Monthly story which posits the key questions about the inevitable failure of the Kim regime:
What should concentrate the minds of American strategists is not Kim’s missiles per se but rather what his decision to launch them says about the stability of his regime. Middle- and upper-middle-level U.S. officers based in South Korea and Japan are planning for a meltdown of North Korea that, within days or even hours of its occurrence, could present the world—meaning, really, the American military—with the greatest stabilization operation since the end of World War II. “It could be the mother of all humanitarian relief operations,” Army Special Forces Colonel David Maxwell told me. On one day, a semi-starving population of 23 million people would be Kim Jong Il’s responsibility; on the next, it would be the U.S. military’s, which would have to work out an arrangement with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (among others) about how to manage the crisis.
Fortunately, the demise of North Korea is more likely to be drawn out. Robert Collins, a retired Army master sergeant and now a civilian area expert for the American military in South Korea, outlined for me seven phases of collapse in the North.
He has much more and it is thought provoking and chilling.
The Malignant Narcissist is the epitome of the solipsist and the most dangerous time is when his grip on the external structures which he needs to bolster his grandiosity begins to slip. In North Korea the regime is slipping and they are close to having their fingers on the button.
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