Educated guesswork might, perhaps, enable American experts on North Korea to arrive at something approaching an accurate assessment of that country’s nuclear and missile capabilities. The Pyongyang regime occasionally broadcasts images of its weaponry, and proclaims loudly to one and all that it has “completely perfected” various frightful technologies of mass annihilation.
U.S. and South Korean spokespersons generally downplay the extent of North Korea’s advances and remind global opinion that the regime north of the Korean Demilitarized Zone is filled with boasters and wild-eyed propagandists. One certainly hopes that our intelligence agencies are justified in taking a relatively relaxed stance towards Pyongyang.
But what if our many experts, analysts, operators of surveillance satellites and exalted decoders of things North Korean have it wrong? What if the Kim Jong-un regime really has managed to perfect an H-bomb and ballistic missile technology? What if North Korea really has arrived at a point at which it can imperil cities in North America?
That particular scenario is too horrible to contemplate.
