Is
Kim Jong-un's level of rhetoric indicative of madness or a death wish?
Though it is impossible to know the mind of such a protected figure, I
would argue that his behavior is merely the reasonable result of lessons
he has learned from past responses to his and his father's aggression,
which makes the current situation far more complicated than it needed to
be.
Part of the problem is that the world is still treating Kim as a man who is pushing his luck on bluffing and provocation. The truth is, the North Korean regime, including Jong-un's iteration of it, has been far beyond the bluffing and provocation stage for many years, but has breached that line so many times with impunity that they now feel almost impervious to retaliation.
Over the years, they have fired missiles directly over Japan. They have shelled an inhabited South Korean island, killing several people. They have torpedoed a South Korean navy ship, killing 46 seamen. In each case, apart from a brief exchange of fire when Yeonpyeong Island was attacked in 2010, the response from South Korea, Japan, and the U.S. has been little more than stern rhetoric and dire warnings, rather than serious military retaliation to demonstrate that under no circumstances will lethal attacks and overt violations of sovereign territory be treated as mere "provocations" or "escalations of tension." These allies have never taken decisive action to show the Dear Leaders Kim that an attack is an attack, and will be dealt with as such.
The result is what we see now. Kim Jong-un has been conditioned by past leniency -- by always getting away with it -- to regard his current behavior as safely within the bounds of flexing his muscles for his indoctrinated people, or of begging for attention from the North's stoic older brother, China.
Part of the problem is that the world is still treating Kim as a man who is pushing his luck on bluffing and provocation. The truth is, the North Korean regime, including Jong-un's iteration of it, has been far beyond the bluffing and provocation stage for many years, but has breached that line so many times with impunity that they now feel almost impervious to retaliation.
Over the years, they have fired missiles directly over Japan. They have shelled an inhabited South Korean island, killing several people. They have torpedoed a South Korean navy ship, killing 46 seamen. In each case, apart from a brief exchange of fire when Yeonpyeong Island was attacked in 2010, the response from South Korea, Japan, and the U.S. has been little more than stern rhetoric and dire warnings, rather than serious military retaliation to demonstrate that under no circumstances will lethal attacks and overt violations of sovereign territory be treated as mere "provocations" or "escalations of tension." These allies have never taken decisive action to show the Dear Leaders Kim that an attack is an attack, and will be dealt with as such.
The result is what we see now. Kim Jong-un has been conditioned by past leniency -- by always getting away with it -- to regard his current behavior as safely within the bounds of flexing his muscles for his indoctrinated people, or of begging for attention from the North's stoic older brother, China.
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