East vs East – Asia’s new arms race

It is, by now, clear that Kim Jong-un is madder than his father. He’s blasted off North Korea’s third nuclear test and plans to restart its nuclear reactor, as his people continue to starve. Last weekend his government declared that the ‘time has come to stage a do-or-die final battle’ with South Korea. He has instructed his troops to ‘break the waists of the crazy enemies’ and also ‘cut their windpipes’. For good measure he described Park Geun-hye, South Korea’s first female president, as a ‘venomous swish of skirt’ and has severed all military hotlines with Seoul, like a petulant teenager refusing to answer the phone. It would be funny, if only his nukes weren’t real.

America, at any rate, is taking the threat seriously. Last weekend, two nuclear-capable B-2 bombers took off from Missouri for a practice run over the Korean Peninsula. This was not just a warning to Kim. General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, admitted that his exercises ‘are mostly to assure our allies that they can count on us to be prepared’.