Sid

this time is due in part to having 2 untested leaders.

leader surrounded by military (and we can't figure out who's really in charge), and a desperate and starving population, bad harvest, whatever the case may be over there. It's not the rhetoric so much as the combination of rhetoric, cutting communication lines, canceling the armistice, threatening nukes, youth, inexperienced leaders of both SK and NK, pressure from NK societal and governmental collapse...a lot of factors at once. Because NK has attacked at random in the recent past, and had not received retaliation, they may feel they can pull a similar stunt now to get what they want (sanctions eased, aid, respect, etc.)--but S Korea has declared a harder line on such activities, and the nuke threat has raised the stakes. One mistake (with lines of communication cut) or misunderstanding could really be awful.

then they will reap the consequences. Today, it would be the death knell of a nation. I don't know if the leaders there are that stupid, but they show signs of being very stupid, indeed.

For that reason, I imagine that any aggressive actions they might take will fall short of that possibility. Even so, Kim Jung Un had better find a good shelter to hole up in. Our intelligence in NK may be better than he thinks. I don't know that it is, but I suspect it is good enough to know the location of the lad at all times.

are going to pre-emptively nuke another country, I don't know how we blow that off and ignore it as mere bluster. Can you imagine if they did launch or smuggle a nuke or dirty bomb, and we had laughed it off as silly rhetoric? The only other country talking anywhere near that crazy right now is Iran, and they are watching how we respond to NK, I am sure.

know if they are really going to launch a nuclear device. If they attempt to do so, it will be destroyed before launch. Count on it. We have eyes on their missile facilities all the time, I have no doubt.

At this point, their nuclear capabilities are primitive and slow to prepare for any use. We'll see any such activity.

by how far they'd come lately in development. Successful launch into orbit of a satellite, mobile ICBM platform--can't remember what rattled them. But there was an article in WaPost last week that said a recent panel concluded that our intelligence services have been too consumed with war and counter-terror activities (including drones) over the last decade, and sort of took our eye off the ball with intelligence gathering in Asia and other parts of the globe. So it may be that we're not really up to speed on things in NK.

Since I have no direct information from any diplomatic or military sources, I can't really say.

and ready to invade or start a war at a moments notice to rid the world of this evil guy, you aren't following the program.