This North Korean thing.

[Workingman]

How close are we to war?

The US has just installed its THAAD missile defence system in the South. It has a nuclear capable sub docked in a South Korean Harbour. A carrier battle group is on its way.

We now learn (7 pm) that all members of the Senate are in the White House for a briefing from Trump.

There are ongoing talks between the Chinese and the US with China offering the carrot to NK and the US wielding the big stick. Even so it looks like things are approaching breaking point.

China is not happy with either Kim or Trump and is now making noises against both.

[Suff]

Saw the senate thing on Monday. Certainly Trump is stirring the pot. I have to wonder is this his idea or has the Military managed to pull his chain. They did this to Obama early in his first term but Afghanistan was not a big mistake to make...

NK is a different league.

[AliasAggers]

How close are we to war?
.

I would say 'pretty damn close'.

But there's sod-all we can do about it, so eat, drink and be merry.

Who knows what tomorrow may bring?

[Suff]

Well it's always worth having a good idea what is likely to happen. There are always preparations you can make personally if you think it's all going to go pear shaped.

The NYT is comparing the situation with prior situations and thinks it's just preventative pressure.

There are other signs that the tensions fall short of war. Mr. Kim continues to appear in public, most recently at a pig farm last weekend. South Koreans are not flooding supermarkets to stock up on food. There is no talk of evacuating cities and no sign the United States is deploying additional forces to South Korea. Nor is the American Embassy in Seoul advising diplomats’ families to leave the country.

All those things happened in the spring of 1994, when President Bill Clinton was considering a pre-emptive strike on a North Korean reactor to prevent the North from extracting plutonium that it could use to make a bomb. That is the closest the United States has come to a military clash with North Korea since the end of the Korean War in 1953.

Although that was with the current Kim's father who was somewhat more grounded in reality. This Kim is totally divorced from reality and seems to become more sure of his infallibility as each year goes by.

In short the lie of the land, as far as I can see it, is that Trump will keep on pushing Kim until he gets what he wants. The main question is whether Kim will be pushed. My own view is that NK will make preparations to cause total havoc around the world before launching anything like a Nuke at anyone. However, given the coded messages sent around the world very recently, we cannot be sure those preparations have not been made. It is then we have to remember that NK is a Nuclear power with a dictator for a leader who has little touch with the reality of MAD. Or perhaps he relies far too much on MAD to protect him after he's set everyone else off.

Right now I don't think it's all going to the dogs. But my concern is that if it does it will go with a bang and not with a slow, long drawn out, build up. The best evidence we will have of that is if the NK regime starts to make preparations for "after".

[Workingman]

What is going on?

There have been kind and comforting words for Xi from Trump but with the warning of a major, major conflict. He has also done a bit of buttering up of Kim as a young man taking charge of a regime.

Meanwhile Tillerson at the UN is warning of a threat to world peace and calling for a global response to NK.

Good cop, bad cop?

What I find interesting about the last two tests is the language used to describe them. It has been qualified rather than out-and-out confidence of failure. The first "apparently failed" and the latest "failed", both in inverted commas, yet neither were launch pad failures: the missiles took off. There was some speculation that the US somehow hacked the fist test and brought the missile down, but there has been no such theory about the latest.

Could it possibly be that NK is only testing the launch phase with its new home built launchers and, apparently, solid fuels? It has, after all, had quite a few successful flights over hundreds, even thousands, of kilometres. The launch is of paramount importance and I am wondering if this is why the pressure from China and the US is building.

[TheOstrich]

Just at the moment, I think it is very difficult for the US to know how to play this. The political situation in South Korea is changing, from a hard-liner to a new President who is thought to be an appeaser who prefers rapprochement with NK. The US cannot get too out of step with its prime ally ....