About a month ago a story passed through the news cycle that, like many, received fleeting attention only to be buried under events that people actually seemed to care about. A pair of Chinese trawlers approached the USNS Impeccable, where their crew stripped to their underwear and made a grab for some scientific equipment in easy reach. The Impeccable repelled the insult by aiming their firehoses at the suspect vessels. A day later, the incident escalated, with Chinese patrols shining spotlights on the USNS Victorious, and making a couple of close-in fly-bys with naval aircraft. Protests were lodged, talking heads blustered, and pretty soon, the story went away.
About two days after that story was written, I was in Alaska for work. In a public place I overheard a conversation between what looked like a father and son. The conversation went something like,
"Those Chinese bastards. Harassing our ships. Imagine the nerve."
"Yeah, who the hell do they think they are? Harassing American ships."
"If that Obama wasn't in charge we'd have sent a bunch of F-14s in and blew 'em out of the water."
"They had it coming. We should have taught 'em a lesson then and there."
"Yeah, but with these cowards calling the shots, that'll never happen."
A few days ago, with North Korea's rocket launch that sent all three stages into the Pacific, (just in time for their Supreme People's Assembly to vote unanimously in favor of Kim Jong Il's continued leadership) we started to hear the same thing from Alaska all over again. Governor Palin positioned herself as tough on The Enemy, skewering Obama for missile defense cuts in light of this grave offense.
In fairness, Alaska is one of a few strategic targets within the theoretical radius of North Korea's mediocre ballistic technology. In a strategic distant second, with about 200 million more people than Alaska, come Japan and South Korea.
This launch flew farther than a similar rocket launched in 1998, but nevertheless, crashed in the ocean without coming anywhere near to achieving orbit; something the Soviets did over 40 years before using kerosene. Are you kidding me?
In this world there are a great number of things that go bump in the night. Living in a major city, and being born and raised in Ground Zero, these thoughts weigh heavily on me. But I don't think they scare me anywhere near as much as the paranoid tree people of the north we call Alaskans.
Let's put this in perspective.
1. North Korea has absolutely nothing to gain from launching any kind of strike, nuclear or otherwise. They will lose all the rights to pity that they currently enjoy from their lukewarm relations with Russia and China. More than likely they would also cease to exist once everyone else was through with them.
2. Unlike Iran, North Korea has no strategic allies, underwrites no wars or terrorist activity against America or its allies.
3. Also unlike Iran, there is no effort at nuclear hegemony over their neighbors, Pakistan and Israel, among others.
4. Also also unlike Iran, no one in North Korea is making statements that their populace could withstand a nuclear strike while they could devistate their opponents. For North Korea, it's all lose-lose.
5. Unlike the Soviets, North Korea hasn't had a single rocket do what it should, much less are they the stewards of an expansive empire in posession of megatons-worth of highly fissile material... and even then a missile defense shield was viewed as politically destabilizing and technologically unreliable.
The response to such a state, in its cry for attention, should not be to build a complex, unproven missile defense shield so that the good citizens of Alaska can sleep better. The response is free Ambien and talk therapy along with their oil paychecks.
It's been said that 57 percent of Americans want some kind of American military response to North Korea. It is for reasons like this that our founding fathers designed indirect representation of the people's wishes. North Korea is the last place in the world that merits further military intervention right now. They need propaganda over shortwave, kimchi rations from their Southern cousins, and an eventual revolution.
Even if North Korea achieves all it aims to achieve, launching something into orbit, they are not in a position to do anything other than get people talking to them. With two exceptions in 1945, nuclear weapons have been used exclusively for their potential purpose, rather than their intended purpose. It's the thought of a mushroom cloud that matters, not the cloud itself.
It's just not conscievable that a state in their position would really consider a nuclear strike on anyone. As a general principle, Alaskans are in Alaska precisely because of a need to kill stuff, a fear of outsiders, and bizarre social skills. Great drinking buddies, awesome hunters, but terrible diplomats.
