Welcome To The Club

So another country has tested a nuclear weapon and joined the big club. How many more newcomers will join in the next decade? I expect quite a number given the inevitable switch from oil to nuclear power.

As North Korea has demonstrated, having nuclear weapons gets you noticed and keeps you safe. Obviously North Korea cannot level American cities but now they have the ability to detonate a warhead over US troops stationed in Japan or South Korea. That by itself will stay the Bush administrations hand (not to mention the hundreds of thousands of troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan). Bush will push for sanctions today but what use are sanctions against a country that imposes them on their own population?

Last night, just after the announcement of the test, I foolishly tuned into CNN. Kim Jong-il's evil credentials were on fine display including his bad haircut, his platform shoes and his high school harem. Imagine if I'd watched Fox News.

Yet again, what was not on display was any sort of analysis of the background to the current test. Who are these journalists? The truth is that the US has made this test inevitable by cutting off all aid to the north and stalling the six nations' talks and, worst of all, refusing to speak directly with North Korea; the latter being the most condemnable. Inevitably North Korea would do something to get the Americans' attention, unfortunately it was detonating a nuclear device in an abandoned mine.

Will the Americans change their approach now and talk to North Korea? Doubtful--that would mean Kim Jong-il had won. What effect will this test have on the mid-term elections this November? I expect the Republicans will act tough and win re-election comfortably; how easy is it to demonize the freaky Kim Jong-il? Will the US and other nuclear weapons' states abandon their own nuclear programs, the huge elephant in the room? Never--how could they protect American lives without 100 billion megatons of explosive power? Nice paradox.