Jay Honeck wrote:

In pondering why we (the US -- and the World) haven't responded more
forcefully to the North Korean nuclear tests,

in the whole story there are two things that keeps me thinking:

on the one hand, we have the gvt of North Korea who has
every motivation of bluffing the test (easy: big conventional
explosives, and then vent some radioactive material); their
whole nation is bankrupt and they need that kind of attention
both domestically -- great propaganda -- and internationally
(considering the aggressive US foreign policies, I am surprised
that Lichtenstein hasn't started testing nukes yet); on the
other hand we have our gvt who has every reason -- regardless
of the facts -- of pretending to believe the bluff because this
is something scary -- and fear has proved to be an excellent
political tool -- happening with perfect timing (right before
the elections and at an embarrassing time for the party in
power) is the best thing that could happen to them.

May be the rest of the world knows something we don't (twouldn't
be the first time, would it?)

--Sylvain