Inspired by Nervous Caution/Present Tense

"They have nuclear devices that they can detonate for a test, but they haven't been able to master the very sophisticated technological process of miniaturizing a device to sit on a warhead.
"North Korea is trying to make the statement that it is a nuclear power, that it wants to be dealt with as a nuclear power, that that's part of its domestic prestige and also part of international prestige and leverage. It is very unlikely to me that North Korea will ever be willing to give up its nuclear weapons."
Terence Roehrig, U.S. Navy War College, national security affairs

In this March 11, 2013 photo released by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) and distributed March 12, 2013 by the Korea News Service, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un greets military personnel at a long-range artillery sub-unit of KPA Unit 641. (AP Photo/KCNA via KNS)

Monday represents the 101st birthday of Kim Il-sung, grandfather of Kim Jong-un, founder of North Korea. Such anniversaries require grand events to occur to impress upon all those celebrating the importance of the occasion. And what could be more important in a militarized society for whom arms and power and the ever-present threat of invasion by enemies loom, than the demonstration of advanced weaponry, the better to instill fear in the hearts of those enemies and pride in the hearts of the people?

So while the United States indulges in a paroxysm of uncertainty and nervous anticipation, deploying a missile-tracking system from its navy yards to Hawaii, the Sea-Based-X-Radar missile interceptor tracker, North Korea has serenely put into place on its east coast two Musudan rockets whose estimated range of about 4,000 kilometres is the source of much speculation. The Taepondong-2  with a range of 6,000 kilometres -- powerful enough in its reach to hit Alaska -- may also be tested.

The estimated yield of the proudly miniaturized thermonuclear device set off in North Korea's third such test was said to be six to seven kilotons, in the opinion of South Korean experts. It caused an earthquake that registered 5.1 in magnitude on the Richter scale. But is the North capable of arming a missile with a nuclear warhead? The U.S. Pentagon has just released information that it believes that to be the case. The U.S. State Department contradicts that finding, claiming otherwise. In between lingers uncertainty.

North Korea is determined to own its own nuclear arsenal -- full stop. It prides itself hugely on being a nuclear power, and it demands respect -- if that eludes them, fear will do, and Pyongyang has pulled out all the stops in ensuring that fear has resulted in the anticipation that it cannot be predicted what a regime that honours nothing but its very well defined trajectory of full militarization of weapons of mass destruction will hesitate to produce.

The Soviet Union in its stand-off with the United States as the two global super-powers newly emboldened by their nuclear arsenal, had no wish to destroy itself by pushing a red button, and the United States counted on that universal collective urge toward self-preservation to ensure that both would survive the truculence of any stand-off between opposing ideologies. MAD doesn't seem to connect with Pyongyang, they appear impervious to reason, besotted with the passion of offended sensibilities.

"The real danger is a conventional military provocation, because the South Koreans have already publicly announced that they will respond in kind. They will escalate. And if the South Koreans fire back and if they go after higher level military units in North Korea, no one knows where that will end", theorizes Marcus Noland, fellow at the Peterson Institute, a North Korea expert. He does not believe the North has the capability for a nuclear attack.

With 1.1 million soldiers, 100,000 of whom are designated "special operations troops that are highly trained and very good at what they do", according to Mr. Roehrig, along with a large tank and artillery force, and a multiple-rocket launching system that could destroy Seoul, there is much to consider. Even considering that the North's conventional weapons require upgrading.

"Estimates are that North Korea would be able to rain down a lot of damage say in the first 30 days of an attack, but conventionally they would get hammered by the S.K. and U.S. response. I think North Korea knows that and that's why the nuclear capability is so important as it compensates for an aging conventional capability."

 With all this background and the international concerns relating to the current unstable situation in the Korean Peninsula, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has headed to China for an emergency parlay  to convince Chinese leaders they must calm their client state. China has its own concerns about North Korea heading off the deep end. Not only the inevitable migrating mass of North Korean refugees that would flood into China, but the instability of the region as well.

China has been content up to now to maintain North Korea as its sole supporter of note, (Iran aside, which is in no economic condition to give it financial aid), offering it trade and assistance to keep the country afloat, as a goad to the Americans whom they see as interfering on their Asian turf. The potential reunification of North and South is not a pleasant prospect for China; it would simply enlarge U.S. hegemony on Chinese turf.

But the present situation is untenable, hugely so for the U.S. and its allies in the region, and almost equally so for China. "It gives China plausible deniability in North Korea's co-operation in the nuclear sphere and missile area with Pakistan and Iran, two countries that give the U.S. and India, China's chief strategic rivals, heartburn", commented Professor Noland. China, for obvious reasons, has no wish to see the North Korean regime collapse

"So paradoxically it is North Korea's weakness that gives it the licence to engage in these provocations because while China may disapprove and China may take mild actions to try to discipline North Korea, in the end China fears instability in North Korea more than it fears other outcomes associated with North Korean behaviour."

He may be right about that critical observation, and he may be wrong about North Korea's lacking the capacity to launch a nuclear attack.