NK to world - screw you!

[finnbow]

The conventional wisdom, FWIW, is that NK is doing two things - rallying the country around their new leader (baby Kim) , thereby solidifying his hold on the country and doing what they can to get one-on-one negotiations with us. They want face-to-face with the US only, whereas we want China, Japan, China, Russia and South Korea involved in discussions/negotiations. They feel that dealing with us one-on-one increases the stature of their nation and their leader when compared to being part of a group grope.

This whole thing is about consolidating support within NK against a common enemy (us). This strategy is as old as the hills. Just look at how unified we were (for a few weeks, anyway) after 9/11. BTW, NK announced to its people that SK fired the first shots and that they were just defending the homeland against incursions from US-backed SK. Simple, really.

As for China reining them in, China has less control on NK than we think. This strategy being employed by NK government is to create an existential threat to consolidate its hold on power. Political survival is more important to NK than the possibility of a Chinese spanking.