The North Koreans are in no position to issue many threats:
North Korean threats to unleash its military are apparently meant more to reassure the people who run the police state up there, rather than frighten South Korea and the United States. That's because North Korea is open enough now that there is plenty of first hand intelligence (from ex-soldiers up there, or even men on active duty, and their families) on what is going on inside the North Korean military. The reports are grim. There are shortages of everything, even for elite army commando units. For several years now, the regular army units have not been getting their two meals a day. But now there are shortages of boots and uniforms, not to mention a long list of combat equipment. There's no fuel for training, or spare parts for trucks and weapons. Everything is wearing out, and troops spend more of their time being hired out to civilian enterprises (usually collective farms) for food or money (both of
which more officers are being caught and executed for stealing).
This deterioration is a natural result of Pyongyang's decision to rely on spooks and nukes to maintain the rule of their big-haired kook.
Will the crisis over the missile launch, with Japan prepared to shoot them down with their navy's anti-missile ships, accelerate the long collapse of the Pillsbury Nuke Boy's regime?
