Strategypage notes that North Korea is finding that the usual threats aren't getting the usual response--fear and money:
After over half a century of threats to again invade South Korea the world is finally coming to realize that North Korea is bluffing. ... In short, the threats don’t have much impact and that makes North Korean leaders even angrier because they see their intimidation efforts being ridiculed and, well, ignored.
Even the UN is starting to punish North Korea by limiting participation in the UN. For a gulag and criminal enterprise with a UN seat, losing the UN seat is problematic.
This lack of a proper response is very worrisome for one group in North Korea in particular--the ministry responsible for generating fear and money:
That makes officials at the North Korean Ministry of Intimidation (an organization that exists under a different name) very nervous. Officials who fail the North Korean leadership are often executed.
So there is a bureaucracy charged with intimidating South Korea and the rest of the world into fearful offerings of money and goodies that North Korea's elites can plunder. Performance reviews rely on generating fear and money. Fear and money aren't being generated. At some point, somebody in the northern elites won't get that iPhone 5 they thought they were going to get.
Performance reviews for the Ministry of "Intimidation" can be harsh in a criminal enterprise and gulag with (for now) a UN seat.
So that ministry has a very rational reason to push harder to get fear and money. One, it's all they know. So they'll do more of the same to get expected results. That's safer, bureaucracy-wise.
Two, if intimidation goes too far and escalates? Well, another ministry with planes, tanks, and subs has to cash the checks that MinInt is writing.
Three, leaders might be executed if the ministry doesn't achieve success--or just look like it is trying harder.
Four, if the overzealous intimidation goes awry, the state will perhaps be too busy fighting and may even want the blustering press releases even more while the missiles and rockets are flying. That annual performance review might work out fine, after all.
So even in a nation where it is difficult to really determine what makes sense and what is rational (is running a gulag and criminal enterprise while masquerading as a state really rational? Does it really make sense?), we can see one organization that we can make a case for rational actions that could run the risk of war.
UPDATE: At what point do North Korea's threats becomes so great that someone on our side takes preemptive action? Is this declaration that their missiles are on standby beyond words or is the declaration just a press release?
North Korea put its missile units on standby on Friday to attack U.S. military bases in South Korea and the Pacific, after the United States flew two nuclear-capable stealth bombers over the Korean peninsula in a rare show of force.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un signed off on the order at a midnight meeting of top generals and "judged the time has come to settle accounts with the U.S. imperialists in view of the prevailing situation", the official KCNA news agency said.
KCNA said North Korea and the United States could only settle their differences by "physical means".
Kim Jong Un is the reason God gave us JDAMs, you have to admit. If it is to come to fisticuffs, let's make sure the North Koreans don't live to regret raising the conflict to physical means.
The Russians are right. Demented, but right:
"The situation could simply get out of control, it is slipping toward the spiral of a vicious cycle," [Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov] said when asked about tensions on the Korean Peninsula at a joint news conference after talks with his Ukrainian counterpart.
Russia's focus needs to be more on North Korea cooling down, but Lavrov is right about things potentially spiraling out of control. We are far enough away that we aren't likely to get carried away. But North Korea could well inspire fear and preemptive air and missile attacks by South Korea and/or Japan if the North Koreans don't cool off.
If either of our allies decides that North Korea is about to strike, the incentive to preempt North Korea will be high. That's rational, too, you know.
UPDATE: Here's an example of pushing for armed action combined with the belief that a general war will not follow, with a generous motive of narrow rather than national gain regardless of the outcome. Not that it isn't in our interests to prevent Iran from going nuclear. But it does illustrate a motivation that we shouldn't rule out for North Korean actors when we try to figure out what is rational for the North Koreans to do.
