Recent events involving North Korea should have Americas, Japanese and South Koreans in a tizzy.

Despite the number of ominous stories in the media, Americans are relatively ambivalent about the existential threat of North Korean intercontinental ballistic missiles. Many experts have said that NOKO has the ability to deliver a nuclear missile to US soil. Nevertheless no one is pressing the panic button to this point.

The fear and anxiety in Japan has to be much greater. Kim Jong-un is launching missiles over the heads of Japanese citizens, which are plunging into the ocean a thousand miles beyond them. The implications are clear- NOKO could easily reprogram the missiles to hit Tokyo.

South Korean soldiers can see the build up of arms and men just across the 38th parallel that separates North from South. If a war began NOKO would likely launch an assault with its million man army and unleash short term conventional missiles at Seoul, the capital of South Korea. The city has a population of almost 11 million and is a short 35 miles from the border.

Americans and their government need to be more aggressive with Kim. It is utter insanity to stand aside and allow the maniacal despot to threaten our homeland. We must assume that NOKO has not yet perfected  missile technology that includes a nuclear warhead and accuracy to hit Guam, Hawaii or California. If NOKO can already accomplish this, the security of our country is in dire straits and all the US presidents since the Korean War are responsible.

But why aren’t Americans pushing the president and our leaders to do more to deal with this deadly situation? Why are we still sticking our heads in the sand giving NOKO more time and more practice launching missiles? In his great work Machiavelli wrote, “. . . you ought never to suffer your designs to be crossed in order to avoid war,  since war is not to to be avoided, but is only deferred to your disadvantage.”

Truer words were never spoken. The KOKO situation is going to become more problematic. Kim is intent. His only claims to fame are his nukes. They give him a seat at the negotiating table. Great powers, the US, China and Russia, will be kowtowing to him if we wait any longer.

Informed people appreciate all the reasons to avoid war with NOKO. It has many missiles (some of which are mobile) so the US could not destroy them all in a preemptive attack . Seoul will be NOKO’s primary target. Hundreds of thousand will perish. Japan will be a secondary target. It is staggering that so many in Japan still grasp onto non-militaristic ideals while the nut case in NOKO is shooting missiles over their heads.

The only thing that we can be sure about is that NOKO will perfect a capability to his American soil in the near future, if it hasn’t already done so.

It’s time for the US to employ our most advanced weapons, cyber warfare, special ops and crushing sanctions with our without support from the United Nations, China or Russia.