GDP

OK, given that North Korea is a topic that is close to me, I figure I should say something about the recent developments there. And to be honest, I think this bit from the Onion sums it up best.
( It is fair to say that this criticism about how much GDP a nuclear weapon consumes could be fairly leveled at any country that has nukes, but most of those countries don’t have people starving by the millions; at least the nukes are within their budgets. )
To be honest, I was surprised by this act, for two reasons: firstly, because it seemed to be within their incentive to keep everyone guessing about the state of their weapons technology. International condemnation was swift, and all they seem to have done is put more people on the side of the US.
But the bigger & more immediate blunder seems to be the way it has rallied China and Japan. These two countries, for those who may not be familiar, have barely been on speaking terms diplomatically, mostly due to the fact that the previous prime minister of Japan Junichiro Koizumi (who only just stepped down) had been making annual visits to a shrine in Japan where some war criminals from WWII are buried, which infuriated China. The new prime minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, had just take the platform and there was some uncertainty about what his policies would be, though he seemed to want to mend fences with China. Then NK tests their bomb, and the Chinese and the Japanese instantly are able to build repoire around that issue, as both have vested interests in keeping the peninsula nuke free. The Chinese government saw the test as a huge snub, and responded with the harshest diplomatic language it has used towards the North yet. Given that China is NK’s only real friend, this seems to be a very bad miscalculation on Kim Jong Il’s part. Conversely, it also encourages US military buildup in Japan and in South Korea; the missile technology NK has isn’t really a threat to the mainland US, but Japan is certainly within range. Even though Japan has reaffirmed that it won’t seek it’s own nukes, the US has begun shipping Patriot anti-missile systems to them, and other weapons & technologies will probably follow.
So, it seems that NK had everything to gain from not testing and far more to lose by doing so, and it seems to have opted for the less strategically sound choice. It’s going to be very interesting to see how this all plays out. I think that a war is out of the question, but I hope that things can get resolved somehow so that the civilian population of NK won’t have to continue to suffer such brutal conditions.
( This picture is of course from the Onion, copyrighted by the Onion, made amazing by the Onion, nothing commercial is being bought or sold on this blog so please don't sue me by the Onion, am a broke-ass college student who likes the Onion, etc etc ... )