horse of george

Lil' Kim seems about set to launch a missile into space which Japan may choose to knock down but the US looks like they won't bother with - and the growing POV on the left is that to do nothing is the best option since Lil' Kim is playing to a domestic audience and an 'aggression' by America would suit Kim's purposes just fine - an argument that does have its merits but conveniently ignores fact that a successful launch of a missile into space will also play well to Kim's intended audience - in short the cloistered masses are going to be force fed a rousing nationalist message no matter the outcome.

A more vexing view of the issue though is to wonder if lil' Kim is merely playing to a domestic audience and we therefore do nothing then doesn't that at least create the possibility that Kim, given the absence of a belligerent American threat to rail against, will come off looking weak and foolish and if that's the case will he not then have ample motivation to up the ante? It's probably true that us shooting down the missile might for a moment serve Kim's purposes - but in the long term are not the benefits to be realized ours? We get to test our missile defense capabilities, we stunt NK's ambitions because if they can't test the technology they can't perfect it - yes, Kim will get to use the 'aggression' to stoke anti-Americanism but that is status quo and so is there really any use or sense to our response being swayed by it? In other words, one, we can't really know what Kim is up to, of what outcome best suits his purposes; and two, we can't really know what message he eventually feeds his oppressed people does us the most potential harm. Therefore our response should be based on strategic practicalities: if more benefits accrue from shooting it down then we should shoot the fucker down and not get caught up in a dubious game of trying to guess how Lil' Kim might try to exploit whichever outcome he's left with.

Having said that I suppose the argument against shooting the missile down is that such a 'provocation' would give Kim all the cover he needs to do some serious sabre rattling, actually mustering troops on the border etc etc, and since no sane person wants a war, even a small skirmish of a war breaking out on the peninsula - well, what you might end up with is Kim having even more leverage than he does already.

On the other hand, not shooting the missile down merely commits you to another round of meaningless rhetoric that will end, since China will not cooperate, with Kim getting what he wants. One view would be that no matter how frustrating this is it remains the safest approach. The other view would be that that this approach amounts to a sort of negative gradualism that ends up enabling what it imagines itself inhibiting: North Korea as a very dangerous and unstable nuclear proliferator and provocateur.