I think we are in for some terrible and horrendously tragic news in a very short while.

North Korea’s president Kim Jong-un has just crossed the line, putting U.S. president Donald Trump between a rock and a hard place with the D.P.R.K.’s  launch of the new Hwasong-14 ICBM. The new missile’s potential range was judged at 4100 linear miles, although it traveled only 600 linear miles in a high arch with an apex of over 1740 miles above the earth. Achieving such an altitude is the milestone allowing North Korea to launch sub-orbital and orbital  weapons capable of delivering thermonuclear payloads anywhere in the world in the near future.

North Korea believes this ability will neutralize its perceived threats by the U.S. and others to Kim’s rule. Sadly, the opposite is true.

The general population of North Korea knows little or nothing of the workings outside its own borders. Citizens have been systematically isolated and indoctrinated to believe Kim is their sole provider and cherish him as one would a deity. This farce has gone on for generations, beginning with his grandfather (Kim II-sung) and then his father (Kim Jong-il)and now Kim Jong-un himself. Their beliefs are ironclad. There is no apparent hope of internal pressure to change Kim’s path and to, instead, allow him to survive and to save the lives of countless innocent men, women and children. If Kim only realized his brain-washed public and military would provide far more than enough internal defense from invasion for his regime, he might not be creating doom through his nuclear program and threatening rantings of blatherskite.

There are three superpowers (cops) on the planet. Kim envisions his nation as the forth. This is so far from rational, any debate is pointless. Thus, Russia, China and the U.S. must come to a meeting of the minds about how to quash Kim’s ambitions.  Unfortunately, both China and Russia are pushing for de-escalation through the same avenue of negotiations which have proven not only useless, but, actually counterproductive, in the past. The U.S. has requested a meeting of the 15 member U.N. Security Council to hopefully convene on Wednesday in an effort to avoid the inevitable. All prior meetings on this issue have also proven useless.

Kim Jong-un is like a child with a live grenade. The world has told him to put the pin back in, put it down on the ground and step back, but he’s too  proud of his “grown-up toy” and insists upon walking into a crowded room (the world) to show it off to everyone. Nobody wants to hurt the kid and the cops protecting the room don’t want to shoot the little guy, but he refuses to obey or listen to reason. Two of the three cops won’t act. What are the options? That is Trump’s dilemma.

I believe Trump will act. I’m convinced he will think he must act. The U.S. and North Korea have technically been at war since the 1950s. This war will now be concluded one way or another. History will either liken Trump to Truman or to Hitler, depending upon the number of innocent lives lost in the process. The questions are: What will Trump do? How will it play out?

The complexity of the issues involved bring to mind several scenarios, each worse than the prior.

I will address these imagined scenarios beginning with my next blog-post.