Every time Kim Jong Un of North Korea fires off a missile, the test data his people are collecting is actually secondary in purpose; because each launch gets so much attention, it’s obvious he’s trying to achieve something more than just perfect the technology. So listening to the report on the radio this morning of a launch that sent a missile over Japan caught my attention. Specifically, this from NPR:
North Korea’s most recent missile launch — on Aug. 29 — was the first to fly over Japan in several years. That one, like this one, triggered the J-Alert Japanese civil defense system to break into television and radio broadcasts and send messages across mobile phones in northern Japanese prefectures saying, “Missile alert, missile alert … please take shelter underground or in a sturdy building.”
This sort of thing will alarm the citizens – the citizens who vote and therefore sway their governments. These are not messages solely for the governments of Japan, South Korea, and the United States, but also messages to their citizens. If nothing else, Kim may believe that he’s destabilizing those governments, threatening them with at least temporary dissolution because the citizens, naturally, do not wish to have their lives threatened, however emptily, by Kim’s missile and all he would like us to portend. There’s nothing like a good riot to change the focus of the leadership of, say, Japan, from North Korea to its own citizens.
Kim is no poltroon. He knows one dumb nuclear mistake and his Empire of North Korea will disappear into a pit of steaming lava, and even if he personally survives, his prestige will be shot – and that’s a big deal for him. But he also knows that stirring up his adversaries’ citizens may make them hesitant when decisions need to be made. Decisions such as assassination teams, dealing with North Korean non-nuclear aggression – and distract us from seeing anything else he may have up his sleeve.
