Yesterday North Korea launched a missile that was capable of carrying a nuclear war head that flew over Japan.  This is not the first time NK has violated Japanese sovereignty but it is potentially the most dangerous. To be certain this was not a test but a message. The message is that NK can and will attack its enemies with nuclear weapons. The world is outraged and terrified, except apparently Russia, which has said it was US and South Korean actions that forced NK to launch this missile. This of course was some of the same logic that certain parties used in the past to explain the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the US made them do it.

We are moving down a path that the world has seen before, and has never learned from.  Kim Jung-Un is a ruthless dictator with no moral compass or sense of the world. He is testing the US and regional powers to see how far he can go. He will continue to push until he is convinced of his invincibility. At this point the world will pay a terrible price for its restraint. It is just a question as to which country he will fire a nuke.

We have seen this with Hitler and Stalin and more recently with Kaddafi, Saddam Hussain, and Assad. In each case the world waited until the need for force was required to end aggression and millions died. The argument has always been the same, use diplomacy, use sanctions and wait them out, use of force will only beget force and war. The reality is that the longer you wait to stop someone like Kim the more devastating the war will be, and war is his aim. He has deluding himself into believing the world will always back down and he will always get whatever he wants. There is no one to tell him differently and his life to date has shown he will always get what he wants.

War is terrible, and nuclear war devastating. I do not want war but the way we are going I don’t see a way out of it short of a preemptive strike and the removal of this dictator. In the end, it will be the least deadly path. History however has shown that we will not take that path and there will be another devastating war that could have been avoided.