No Nukes from Pyongyang

 

My sister-in-law Faye is worried about North Korea. She heard on the TV news that Kim Jong-un is threatening to nuke North America.

But I can assure Faye nothing of the kind will happen. The nutty North Korean dictator has been threatening to nuke Americans (and South Koreans and Japanese and…) forever and we’re all still unharmed.

And that’s the way we’ll continue to be. Nobody is nutty enough to start a nuclear war. Everybody knows how that would turn out (yes, even Trump).

Kim Jong-un’s  saber rattling is designed to impress North Koreans, not us. That’s the kind of theater that keeps him in power.

Those poor oppressed souls in North Korea get wide eyed when they hear their Dear Leader telling Uncle Sam where to get off.

That Kim is a really tough guy, they tell themselves. Nobody better mess with him.

But in the larger context of global power, Kim is a piker.

Having his uncle torn apart by a pack of starving dogs and poisoning his brother is standard procedure for the little jerk. But setting off a nuclear holocaust is out of his league.

I’m sure the Chinese leaders know this. And that’s why they continue to keep the North Korean economy afloat.  If President Xi thought Kim Jong-un was really planning to shoot a missile at America, he would’ve stepped in and put a stop to the nonsense long ago.

The Chinese have far too much invested in American real estate – and American consumers – to allow any harm to come to us.

Kim Jong-un is just a noisy brat with a nuclear toy. I suppose he might trigger Armageddon by accident but never on purpose. And I doubt even a dolt like him would be careless enough to set off a nuclear war by accident.

The Nuclear Apocalypse is like that bogeyman in your closet when you were a kid. The powers that be (your parents) used the bogeyman to keep you in line then. And today’s powers that be use the threat of a mushroom cloud to keep you in line now.

More on Kim’s threat

China’s view