North Korea has ratified a nuclear retaliation

[EternalOptimist]

Strikes me that the country most at risk here is Japan. Close enough to be bombarded and long time ally of the enemy.

Phil

The Japs have diplomatic relations with every country in the world , except for one, NK.
They were the colonial masters of NK till 1945 and they have had a lot of problems since then, but nothing that would be enough to spark a war. The Japs have been in the ascendancy diplomatically in the region and they have been busy slamming NK, again, not good for relations, but not a show stopper.
What would tip the balance would be the Japanese shifting from a defence force military to a conventional one (one with an aggressive potential) , this would terrify the NK (it wouldnt make the Chinese too happy either).
NK has four close neighbours, SK,China, Russia and Japan, but the real target is the US. imho

[istvan]

The Japs have diplomatic relations with every country in the world , except for one, NK.
They were the colonial masters of NK till 1945 and they have had a lot of problems since then, but nothing that would be enough to spark a war. The Japs have been in the ascendancy diplomatically in the region and they have been busy slamming NK, again, not good for relations, but not a show stopper.
What would tip the balance would be the Japanese shifting from a defence force military to a conventional one (one with an aggressive potential) , this would terrify the NK (it wouldnt make the Chinese too happy either).
NK has four close neighbours, SK,China, Russia and Japan, but the real target is the US. imho

No matter what North Korea does, they are doomed, people starving, hopeless, masses are kept in trance. The short fat guy knows this, so he needs to keep the masses under this trance by coming up with ever more crazy witch-hunts. So he is going to try to do "it", but that is when an accident happens and a crying nation once more will look up to another new leader, perhaps less crazy. Let's hope so.

By the way, it does not matter what he does to the US, he will lose. He might hurt the heals of an elephant, but he cannot win, hi is a cockroach in comparison. And by the way, we all complain about US being the world police. Just for the record, there was one always in history and there will always be one who dominates (Djingis Khan, Crusades, Ottomans, Romans, colonization, EU, Global Warming - some with more success then the others). Which country would you pick next: China, Russia, Israel, India, Albania?

If it were up to me I would pick Tuvalu.

[Troll]

Not really.

You need a decent target or it's a waste of time.

There weren't any in the early 50s.

So you would see no value in having a nuke cannon firing W9 shells when the Chinese battalions swarmed across at Unsan ?