North Korea Scare Looks Pro Forma

"It's North Korea, Again," an unsigned editorial in today's New York Times Opinion section, is a good, brief summary of the back and forth with North Korea over the last couple of weeks.

I've been corresponding with a buddy of mine who lives in Tucson and is a fellow follower of the news. He thinks that there is something different going on here; that there might be a possibility that all the rhetoric results in a shooting war.

Based on what I've been reading, I think everything is pretty much pro forma here. Even the Kaesong shutdown has been done before, in 2009 during joint U.S.-South Korea military drills. And so far no ships have been sunk or islands subjected to bombardment like in 2010.

What does seem to be different is how the U.S. is responding. Moving the deployment of that missile defense system up a couple of years in Guam is opportunistic; it's using the current situation to speed up what is already in the works -- the "Pivot to Asia" and getting ready for the coming resource wars between China and our allies over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands and Spratly Islands. 

I learned watching a video online last night that South Korea is actively lobbying the Obama administration for approval to enrich uranium and process the spent fuel; in other words, exactly what we've been threatening Iran and North Korea not to do. South Korea wants into the nuclear club.