“Missile, Missile, Missile” screamed the radio stations and the TV channels as Japanese families woke up one early morning to the blare of air raid sirens.
The little “Tubby tyrant” was at it again. This time the North Korean Dictator fired off a missile in the general direction of Japan. And the Japs had good reason to be worried. After all, scarcely a week before the good people of South East Asia woke up to the ugly reality of a Hydrogen Bomb Explosion in their vicinity. An H bomb is so powerful that it requires an atom bomb simply as a detonator to set it off!
Or to put things in perspective, think along the lines of Fat Man and Little Boy the Atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively as fireworks displays in comparison to a Hydrogen weapon.
Indeed, so powerful is the weapon that it uses nuclear fusion technology, the same reaction that powers our sun and other stars!
When the Democratic Republic of North Korea or DPRK (as North Korea likes to call itself) tested an H bomb, it came as a rude surprise, because no one was expecting them to be able to master the technology.
However, the missile flyby across the Japanese Islands was a clear cause of alarm because nobody knew where the missile would land and added to the fact that Japan is the only nation in the world that was unfortunate enough to be subjected to a nuclear attack, the mass panic was understandable.
But the question is, why would the North Korean supreme leader, Kim Jong Un want to tweak his nose so derisively at the rest of the world?
The answer lies in arguably the most extreme sanctions ever levied on a state by the world community, as from textiles to fossil fuel, everything is sanctioned in the DPRK, in an effort to bring the nation down on its knees and give up its atomic program.
The North Koreans loathe the double standards of the world in which a set of nations is allowed to possess nukes and missiles and others are not. After all, no one calls for sanctions against the arch enemies of the North Koreans the Americans who routinely hold massive military exercises right across the North Korean border. They have nukes and missiles too and have used both in wartime. Something the North Korans are yet to do.
Besides, from Kim’s point of view. Moammar Qadaffi had given up his weapons of mass destruction program in return for western guarantees and trade. And the North Korans saw the same Qaddafi dragged though the streets and executed courtesy the same NATO run by the very same countries that had seduced him into giving up his weapons.
The end result was enough to convince Kim that the only reason his country has not gone the way of Libya and Iraq is precisely because he has the means to defend himself in the true spirit of Juche or self-reliance that is the North Korean way of life.
There is no way he is going to end his thermonuclear weapons program and the sanctions cannot force him to do so either. So such missile scares are set to continue, at least in the foreseeable future.
