North Korea has no Nukes!

Recent weeks have played out the strangest display of foolhardiness, blackmail and plain crazy. A supposed nuclear power, North Korea, threatening to blow up the United States and South Korea.

The case for a North Korean nuclear ICBM lacks proof. It goes against all convention. Normally, ICBM capability is "discovered" or communicated, not advertised. Some may argue whether Israel has nuclear capability. Or South Africa or Iran or Pakistan. North Korea is the only country that every advertised its nuclear capability. 

If the past is any indication to go by, North Korean threats of war are overblown. However, the chances that it will conduct another nuclear test are high. And it is gaining ground in its missile program, experts say, though still a long way from seriously threatening the U.S. mainland. "It's not the first time they've made a similar threat of war," said Ryoo Kihl-jae, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. "What's more serious than the probability of an attack on South Korea is that of a nuclear test. I see very slim chances of North Korea following through with its threat of war."

Consider these facts about nuclear weapons. No nuclear power has ever before threatened another nuclear power with a direct attack. 

My Take
In a very revealing interview by Bill Clinton after he left the White House, the former US President explained how the US purchased North Korean military stockpiles and destroyed them for fear of these weapons (including handguns and grenades) getting into the international black-market. This option practiced by Clinton Presidency was driven by the crudeness of the weapons rather than their tactical impact.

The North Korean nuclear program is the best weapon against itself.

1. It permanently drains their meagre ressources 
2. It guarantees that North Korea is dependent on food aid from its designated enemies (South Korea and USA).
3. It maintains hyper inflation, massive poverty and a permanent brain-drain with North Korean scientists defecting to South Korea. 

Will the US intervene.
No! Similar to WWII where British intelligence concluded that assassinating Hitler will be counter-productive because his generals (Heinz Guderian, Wilhelm Keitel, Erwin Rommel and Gerd von Rundstedt) freed from the overburdening yoke of an erratic civilian dictator could effectively win the war between 1939 and 1942; a US intervention will destabilize North Korea and may create a military vacuum that may forge the emergence of a real military threat to South Korea and beyond. It serves US military interests to keep a twenty-something year old (who is yet to make the difference between video games and war) at the helm.