Editorial: N Korea's aggression concerns

Paul Brooks

I'm guessing I'm not the only one feeling concerned about North Korea's ambitious armaments programme and the likelihood of its success.

This week they sent a high-powered phallic symbol on a 40-minute flight more than 2700 kilometres above Earth and into the Sea of Japan (Koreans call it the East Sea).

With that sort of distance capability, fired at a lower trajectory, this missile could reach mainland US, making it a genuine intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and real reason for concern.

While North Korea's glorious leader, Kim Jong Un, might be a few sandwiches short of a Western picnic, his scientists and military men are not.

They are smart people who have been given unlimited resources to come up with the required goods, and it is in their best interests to do so.

Technologically, the ICBM has sent North Korea's progress graph skywards and promises bigger, better and faster with the probability of a nuclear warhead to suit.

Politically, such a development could alter the balance of power in a region where things are already fragile.

It constitutes a threat to a number of nations, including South Korea and the US, both, along with Japan, having said they will not accept a nuclear-armed North Korea.

What does that mean, "will not accept"?

South Korea has its own military, as well as 28,000 US troops parked on its soil, and Japan's no slug when it comes to defence, so what exactly do they mean to do to counteract this obvious and intentional threat?

Rattle their sabres? Negotiate? International sanctions? Diplomatic pressure? Something more tangible and threatening?

Kim Jong Un probably feels he's got a good chance of winning if it came to war, and I don't think he'll back down to empty gestures.

Are we safe in the South Pacific? Let's hope so, but I don't like where this arms race is headed.