Monday, April 30, 2018

Kim Jong-un: What to do? What to do?

Let's play pretend for a moment.


Let's pretend you're Kim Jong-un. You've been pissing on the world by setting off nuclear tests under Mount Mantap for a while. The last test, though, was more powerful than the others...and the mountain collapsed on itself. Now, there's a small amount of radiation leaking from the rubble. China is jumping up and down, The American Carrot is jumping up and down. 

What to do? What to do?

It doesn't take a PhD in geology to know that if you keep blowing up stuff under something else, eventually the something else part will collapse. And that collapse is not exactly tidy. 

Kim Jong-un may be crazy, but he's may not be stupid, either. He knows what's at stake. And he knows that if he wants to keep his job, he needs to make some fundamental changes so he can continue being Fearless Leader. But right now, he's got to deal with seismic shifts in his teutonic plates. 

Mount Mantap is not the first mountain North Korea's nuclear tests have disturbed. Last October, the North Korean's "Sacred Mountain of the Revolution," Mount Paektu, is only 60 miles from the September 3rd detonations. Paetku is a volcano that also happens to sit on the North Korean-Chinese border. Minor details, I suppose. But if you're Lil' Kim, you might have some concerns about your relationship with China, your trading partner and close ally. You might find yourself in the hot seat for breaking parts of the planet that are near China. And you might find yourself between two broken mountains both of which are seismic rumblers. 

Know what happens when you got a couple o'rumblers out there?

So going back to our game, let's pretend back in October of '17, your scientists (and you do believe your scientists, unlike the American Carrot) tell you how the repeated detonations at Punggye-ri nuclear test at Mount Mantap are causing new and unusual seismic activity, at least 4 earthquakes, and activity is being felt as far away as Russia:
Shortly afterward, Chinese authorities closed part of the tourist park on their side of the border because of rock slides. Chinese authorities would not say definitively whether the nuclear test was to blame, but seismologists think it is likely. The explosion registered as a 6.3 magnitude earthquake and was blamed for water bottles rolling off tables and furniture toppling in China, and apartment buildings rattling all the way to the Russian port city of Vladivostok. 
 Barbara Demick for the Los Angeles TIMES - Oct. 7, 2017     
And now, Russia is eyeing you as a possible target because you're damaging their stuff, too.  And if China and Russia join forces, well, kiss your dictatorship goodbye. But you want to be a grown up and show them all how your leadership is important and global, but you need someone to take on who will allow you to act like a leader.

What to do? What to do?

You take on an easy target: The American Carrot. He's so egocentric he can't tell when he's being played and that makes him the perfect patsy. You tell the Carrot you'll meet with him, you'll give up your nuclear testing program, and in return all you want is to have American military leave the Korean peninsula, and to promise they will never-ever attack North Korea. You know the Carrot will hail himself hero, he will blow his own whatever, and never notice that Mt. Mantap is not completely collapsed, and is still a viable research site that no one ever has to know exists. 

But that's not your biggest aim. The end game, a reunification of Korea, would give you more power and more prestige. Play their game until the last minute, then strike....and take over South Korea when they least expect it. 

This is not a sudden gesture of peace and friendship; this is an end-game. Kim Jong-un is jockeying for position. He's expecting to be top man in Korea, and he's expecting to be protected from a US attack. 

Folks, this is not exactly hard to figure out. Of course, we haven't see Putin's marching orders on this. Frankly I don't trust any of them.

All of this from a collapsing mountain. 

Yep.

Feckless thinks he's gonna get a Nobel Peace Prize for this.  Good luck with that.


The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week
It may say May on the calendar,
but do not rush to put out our plants.         

READER BONUS: Reader Laurie Hayes sent me this from the UNZ REVIEW; it's an interesting perspective and worth a read:

6 comments:

  1. A very interesting take on this (would this be called "geo-political?") I figured Un was starting to realize that there is just so much longer he can starve his people before they rise up against him. (A different rumbling). With all the attention on North Korea right now, it's getting harder to keep information about the world beyond the N. Korean borders from them completely.

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  2. My theory is that Russia has given Kim Jong-Un the dirt on Trump. People like Kim don't suddenly want peace and to give up what they worked so hard for without good reason. Kim is very eager to meet with Trump and I predict that during that meeting Kim will throw the compromising information card on the table. Trump, who always looks to protect himself first, will agree to pulling U.S. troops out, flexible nuclear inspection standards, removing economic sanctions, and even economic aide--all to save face. The new axis of power will be Russia, China and the Koreas. Together they've got everything they need: natural resources, billions of souls to provide cheap labor, manufacturing facilities, stolen intellectual property, sophisticated cyber weapons, oodles of money and trade routes. Who needs nukes when you've got all that? But don't worry, we've got the Trumps! We can all go to bed at night clutching our blankets of grievances and bigotry and ignorance. How comforting.

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    Replies
    1. Karen, you need to stop watching MSNBC as it's rotting your brain. I look forward to your apology when your off-the-wall prediction proves to be wrong. FYI, the key to making political predictions is to leave yourself some wiggle room.
      If Trump does agree to pull US troops out of SK, I will hail you as a visionary. The other three conditions have been Democratic policies for years - a legacy of Jimmy Carter.

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    2. You are hilarious! You need to allow some wiggle room in your own predictions...I don't watch MSNBC. BTW, I said it was my theory not prediction. Grab a dictionary and understand the difference.

      Delete
  3. Mr./Ms. Anonymous,
    If you are going to attack someone, at least have the guts to give your name!

    ReplyDelete
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