North Korea Launches Ballistic Missile From Submarine

                North Korea recently and successfully put a satellite into orbit, exhibiting the same technology required to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile. Its long-range missile program is becoming increasingly reliable, decreasingly a joke.

                In fact, in 2015, the commanders of U.S. Forces Korea, Pacific Command, and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) all publicly assessed that North Korea has the ability to hit the United States with a nuclear weapon. (At least in-so-far as its bases in the Pacific are concerned). Yet the U.N. has done nothing…and neither has the Obama administration.

                Moreover, South Korea now claims that the North has the ability to attach small nuclear warheads to its ballistic missiles, while the North also avers it has the capability to fit a miniaturized  nuclear warhead to its missiles. The Hermit Kingdom also reported that it successfully tested an engine designed for an inter-continental ballistic missile that could reach the U.S. mainland. That said, it appears the North’s most recent launch of a (Musudan) missile was an abject failure, though experts say the communist nation has another Musudan loaded on a mobile launcher and that they expect it to be fired off at any time.

                And, just yesterday, North Korea claimed that it had successfully test-fired a ballistic missile from a submarine, though South Korean military officials noted that it didn’t travel very far. The North Korean Central News Agency, bastion of journalistic objectivity that it is, reported that Dear Leader Kim Jong-un watched from a test facility as the missile surged from a submarine and spewed out a “massive stream of flames” as it soared into the sky. The KCNA report also stated that after the test Kim declared that the North now had yet another strong nuclear strike method and the ability to stick a “dagger of destruction” into its enemies at any time.

                What should be done about the mounting threat? This is the rare case where the U.S. should try to meet with- and talk to- an adversary. I normally don’t believe there is any benefit to this approach, but, if handled correctly, it could be helpful in the current situation.

                The North Koreans should be privately, but promptly, informed that if they launch- or attempt to launch- a nuclear attack on the United States- or any of its allies or protectorates- at any time, for any reason, they will be quickly and summarily vaporized.

                But only after their Dear Leader, Kim Jong-un, has been captured by U.S. Special Forces, forced to don all white apparel and made to giggle like the Pillsbury Dough-Boy…all this being broadcast live around the world via cable and satellite television…before he is water-boarded and compelled to binge-watch Barbara Streisand movies.

                Analysts do not agree as to the state of North Korea’s current nuclear capability, but most do concede that each nuclear and missile test moves them inexorably closer to realizing their goal of possessing a nuclear-armed arsenal of long-range missiles.

                For some reason, the West doesn’t really seem to care if Iran acquires an advanced nuclear capability, even though Iran and Kim Jong-un’s nation are sharing weapons information like besotted young lovers shared milkshakes in rural 1950’s American soda fountains. It is well past time for the United States and other Western nations to tell these two pillars of the “Axis of Evil” to cease and desist.

                Or cease to exist.