As we had expected Kim Jong Il’s Stalinist regime in North Korea appears to have successfully tested a nuclear device over the weekend. According to reports, sizeable geological activity has been recorded, consistent with a nuclear test and the first such test by any nation since the tit for tat detonations by India and Pakistan in the late 1990s. It is already known that the North possesses a nuclear weapons capability, a fact that is acknowledged by the North as well as many other nations, so claims of a nuclear test are not a complete surprise.

While North Korea claims this test was necessary in order to oppose imminent hostility posed by the US and Japan. In reality the tests were conducted to elicit concessions form the western powers as they have done vis-à-vis Iran, yet another shining example of the inherit danger posed by a policy of appeasement. Above all, North Korea is desperate for aid, but the nation is unwilling to embrace the necessary reforms that would bring about a flood trade and commerce from the West, thus they must resort to coercion, which will allow for such deals without abandoning their Stalinist tendencies.

Now that Korea has done the expected and conducted its nuclear tests, perhaps the doubters and panderers in China, Russia and South Korea will awaken to the new reality and danger of Kim Jong Il’s totalitarian regime, perhaps then again a new round of appeasement will begin in earnest and perhaps we can expect a little of both with nations like South Korea calling for more concessions and nations like Japan moving for swift punitive measures. Only time will tell which strategy will prove successful.
Link to Reuters article