WHEN WILL THEY EVER LEARN?

I see where North Korea is again making threats against South Korea and implicitly against the United States in threatening to use disputed sea areas of the west coast of Korea for ordnance practice. This comes at the same time that our pusillanimous envoys are making nice to them in another futile round of diplomatic efforts to get the Koreans to give up their nuclear program.

If the lessons of history can tell us anything it is that the longer a strong country allows itself to be bluffed by a weak one the better the chance that the weak one will become stronger. In 1936, the Germans marched an army into the Rhineland, an area declared to remain demilitarized by the treaty of Versailles. The German military had strict orders that if even one shot was fired against them, they were to turn tail and leave. But not one Frenchman even lifted a gun to stop the depredation. Two years later, at Munich, the victors of World War I calmly gave away Czech sovereignty to the loser of the conflict. The Germans were still not as strong as they ultimately became but they were stronger than they had been in 1936. The loss of Czechoslovakia to the Germans greatly increased their strength further and denied Czechoslovakia's industrial might to the allied powers.

The former Soviet Union bullied and bluffed the western powers for close to 70 years, and with the help of the United States developed from a backwards, agrarian nation into an industrial one (still backwards though) that fomented untold trouble for the US and its allies. Although the Soviet Union fell under the force of Reagan's economic warfare, its successor, Russia, continues to bluff and bully, demanding a place at the table among the strong industrial economies when its economy barely matches that of several of the US individual states.

I can understand that the US doesn't want to get involved in a third war (if it even can) in Asia. But I can't see a great effort needed for the most powerful and richest country in the world to teach a lesson to a tenth rate starving nation. Yes they have a large army. Yes, they may have some nuclear weapons although it isn't clear if they or their delivery systems work. I wonder what would happen if some serious damage were done to their most sophisticated installations and modernized cities. If their leaders were somehow incapacitated, what good would their army do them? These are desperate people and the leadership would very quickly be at each others' throats, nullifying their ability to mount a meaningful attack anywhere. If they did manage to fire some nuclear warheads, the most likely target would be South Korea so I can understand why the south doesn't want any action by the US that isn't cleared by them.

More's the pity, because the north will eventually take on the south anyway and the longer we wait the worse will be the result.