An Urban's Rural View

If any country other than North Korea had just declared war on the U.S. (http://tiny.cc/…) and threatened to rain nuclear missiles on both American coasts, you might have gotten an advisory to get out of the fields and into your bomb shelter.

North Korea, however, is the modern-day takeoff on The Mouse That Roared. In that 1959 movie, made when memories of America's post-World War II generosity to Germany and Japan were still fresh, the lovable, laughable Grand Duchy of Fenwick declared war on the U.S. with the idea of losing and receiving foreign aid.

North Korea isn't particularly lovable but it is laughable. No one quivers in fear when this mouse roars; it's constantly roaring, often in ridiculously blood-curdling language. Analysts have lost count of how many times North Korea has threatened to turn South Korea into "a sea of fire."

The U.S. response to North Korea's latest bluster was to send a couple of B-2 stealth bombers on a practice run over South Korea. Just a little reminder to the North Koreans that they're seriously outmatched should it come to nuclear war.

As best analysts can tell, the roars are partly for domestic consumption (the fiercer the threats, the braver its leaders look) and partly in hopes of being bought off. And indeed, we have at times sent aid in exchange for promises from Pyongyang to stop developing nuclear weapons. The promises have turned out to be as believable as the threats.

Analysts reckon North Korea now has both nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. You don't need access to intelligence estimates to doubt it has the ability to make the weapons small enough to fit on the missiles. Analysts laughed at some of the photos the country released recently (http://tiny.cc/…) to show off its military capabilities.

One day when I was reporting in North Korea in 1989, my interpreter and driver ordered me out of the car and left me by the side of the road without explanation while they pulled into a driveway. I peeked around the corner and found out why. They were hand-pumping gasoline into the car. They didn't want me to see how primitive their technology was.

Today's North Koreans don't seem to care whether the world sees their limitations. In one of the just-released photos young dictator Kim Jong Un and his generals are examining a combat computer that looks like it would have been out of date in 1993. Another shows North Korean forces making an amphibious landing in Photoshopped hovercraft.

So while North Korea has vowed to "keep the White House in the cross-hairs of our long-range missiles," you needn't let fears of nuclear war interrupt your fieldwork. Still, it isn't a bad idea to keep up on the North Korea news. Every great once in awhile, a country that's either crazy or pretending to be crazy does something crazy.

In the movie, the Grand Duchy of Fenwick invaded New York. Unfortunately, the invaders arrived during a nuclear drill when there was no one on the streets to surrender to. Maybe, given that we've now got a real mouse on our hands, it's a good thing that we don't have bomb shelters any more.

Urban Lehner can be reached at urban.lehner@telventdtn.com

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