We should not think this is a case of parties on the peninsula crying wolf. North Korea has shown time and time again it will strike with violence. It may well be on the verge of doing so again

Decoding North Korea’s nuclear rhetoric

By Kim R. Holmes

Pyongyang’s saber-rattling often precedes attack

North Koreans are famous for belligerent rhetoric. Most recently, they’ve threatened to turn Seoul into a “sea of fire.” The North’s new leader, Kim Jong-un, comes across as a madman strutting around in a 1950s cartoon. Such flamboyance can tempt people to dismiss the North Koreans as either a joke or too crazy to be taken seriously. This is a mistake. They are not crazy, but wily operators who know how to play brinkmanship to their advantage.
Over the years, the North Koreans have learned that outrageously provocative behavior is never punished. In 1968, North Koreans seized and tortured the crew of the USS Pueblo, releasing them only after the United States apologized for spying. In 1976, they hacked to death two U.S. soldiers trying to cut down a tree in the joint security area at Panmunjom. In response, President Ford sent in a force — strangely called Operation Paul Bunyan — not to retaliate, but to surround and cut down the offending tree. As recently as 2010, North Korea shelled a South Korean island and sank one of its ships; except for some limited South Korean return fire, the best the world could muster were a lot of heated words.

The North Koreans, naturally, have drawn two lessons: First, that South Korea and the United States will do practically anything to avoid a conflict. Any action short of an all-out invasion of the South is likely to be met only with a lot of heavy diplomatic breathing. Second, that international isolation actually pays.

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