Brinkmanship !

There is little technical difference in building a rocket capable of delivering a satellite into space - and turning that same rocket into an Intercontinental Ballistic missile. ( ICBM ).   Both of the Koreas have developed such rockets - and both claim to have delivered a working satellite to prove their point.

The big difference is that North Korea has also detonated nuclear explosions and is now threatening to conduct a third test.   It openly declares both the United States and Japan as it's enemies and makes no bones about it's desire to confront both countries militarily.

Technically, the two Koreas are still at war.  The Korean war of 1950/53 ended in stalemate and after a peace conference at Panmunjom an armistice was declared, separating the warring sides at the 38'th parallel.  That is still a fortified zone, bristling with weaponry and a regular scene of " incidents " that keep the animosity alive.

North Korea has one of the biggest armies in the world and it's upkeep and spending on military equipment is at the expense of it's citizens.   Famine is a regular visitor to North Korean family dinner tables and the regime is a past master at offering hints of better conduct in exchange for food supplements from South Korea and the west.    Few of these promises are ever fully kept.

North Korea, Iran and Pakistan are the three most likely threats to world peace.   North Korea and Pakistan defied the United Nations and clandestinely developed nuclear weapons, and Iran is suspected to be well on the way to a similar goal.  All three practice brinkmanship - and that brings with it the danger of miscalculation.

Assuming that the leadership of these three countries is not totally insane, the world should be reasonably safe for a decade or so.   Each of these new nuclear nations have a limited nuclear arsenal  and at this stage they could only mount a limited nuclear strike of a similar nature to the Hiroshima bomb.

In contrast, the nuclear arsenal of the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France contains the hydrogen weapon, immeasurably bigger than the Hiroshima bomb.   Both the United States and Russia have both delivery systems and bomb quantities capable of totally obliterating every man, woman and child in the countries involved in a nuclear attack on their soil.

The problem is - how to contain the growth of these nuclear arsenals and their delivery systems ?  Stopping the development of new nuclear armed regimes has failed and the sanctions in place show no sign of retreating the progress already made.   Progressively, there is every chance that the future will see bigger and better nuclear bombs in the hands of the lesser powers, and delivery systems have become a major dollar earning component of the world's arms race.

A country that possesses a nuclear bomb has a decided edge in the brinkmanship stakes. compared to a non nuclear country.   That is the incentive that is driving the nuclear arms race.  It seems that we are doomed to live with an ever expanding nuclear threat because no country trusts it's neighbours - and human nature drives
us to seek arms superiority.

It has been that way since the first cave man invented the spear.  It seems we simply have to learn to live with it !