Well, it’s that time again - North Korea soon to test a ballistic missile - are we really going to continue to let them test these things until they get it right or are we gonna stop the tests by shooting the things down? Well, pretty much certain I think we won't be shooting it down - unless we were willing to park some Aegis destroyers off the coast of NK [and therefore in range of their various anti-ship toys] don’t think we actually can shoot the thing down, so there’s that. Still, raises again one of my favorite foreign policy conundrums: it’s always easier to predict, to visualize the negative outcome of doing something bold than the negative outcome of not doing something bold when you had the chance - but that doesn’t mean at all that not doing something was the better option - yet it’s very difficult to move past that cognitive void and therefore we fall for the false comfort of the choice whose consequences we can more easily picture - we have a strong tendency to equate that comfort with a solid ‘truth’ even though the certainty promised is an illusion. Shooting the missile down could very easily lead to bad things - but not shooting it down? Very easily lead to much worse.
