Two Spoiled Brats

Example 1:  For all intents he is a hereditary monarch having been handed the crown when his father died, just as his father inherited it when the grandfather died.  He has never known anything but power and privilege.  There is no opposition to his rule, at least none that are still alive.  Now 33 years old, he was literally given the keys to the kingdom when he was 27. He consolidated his power by having people killed, probably including his older brother. He has at his command one of the largest militaries in the world including missiles and nuclear weapons.  His sole aim is the stay in power.

Example 2: He is much older, but is nonetheless the product of a privileged upbringing.  He started life rich and built on that as a speculator and developer.  He knew “the art of the deal”. He made himself a media star by firing people.  He has ego and now has power.  He manipulates the truth to his advantage.  And now he has under his control the most powerful military in the world including the largest nuclear arsenal in the world.  His sole aim is?

Now these two men are arguing like children.  Each thinks he can bully the other as they have bullied so many in the past. Like most bullies, neither man wants to talk to the other to find a way out of the disagreement. And neither one cares what the rest of us might think or that we could be those harmed.  With both ego and power, neither seems likely to back down.  It leaves us in an oh so dangerous situation.  You see, if, or when, one of them decides to take more overt action, like using some of those nuclear weapons, the two of them will not be killed, but millions of others will be.

So what is behind this disagreement?  Well it started when one of them started doing missile tests.  The fact that the other side fires missiles of every type almost every day did not seem to matter.  And then the first side tested nuclear weapons a thing the second side did for over twenty years, even to destroying a group of islands in the Pacific Ocean.  But it didn’t matter, the second side took umbrage.  And so we have come to this impasse.

Perhaps a few observations are in order.  North Korea has fired a handful of long range missiles, some of which have failed.  How many can they make and how fast they can make them has never been answered?  Given the complexity of such weapons, they may only have a very few in their arsenal.  The same goes for nuclear weapons.  None so far has been proven to be a hydrogen bomb: enhanced atomic maybe.  Again, how many do they actually have that are deployable and how fast can they make them?  The recent picture of Kim Jong Un standing beside what was purported to be a hydrogen bomb was most certainly nothing more than a hollow sample which may or may not be able to house one of their weapons.  But if it was an actual nuclear weapon, he would certainly not be standing so close to it for fear of nuclear radiation.  This is not to say that North Korea could not raise havoc, particularly in South Korea and Japan, and perhaps, just perhaps, in North America.  But it would most certainly destroy North Korea and Kim’s dreams.  In the process, millions of innocent people would lose their lives.  And for what?

Two spoiled brats threatening each other with their toys.  How schoolyard-ish.