Up in the Air - North Korea

One again, the regime of Kim Jong Il has tested the international community's tolerance with long range missile launch tests. As the Bloomberg news summarised " North Korea tested its second nuclear device on May 25, defying international condemnation that built up after a ballistic-missile launch in April. Two days ago, Kim Jong Il’s regime threatened an armed strike against South Korea for agreeing to participate in a U.S.-led program to stop and search ships suspected of carrying weapons of mass destruction".

North Korea is the world's most isolated, totalitarian state and operates at the edge of brinkmanship to attempt to gain some yet not well understood advantage. The World strongly relies on neighbouring states such as the People's Republic of China to try and intercede with the North Korean leadership yet often China finds that it has no greater influence than anyone else in dealing with the paranoid regime.

North Korea under its current leadership is unlikely to adopt any change in direction and each step forward in developing improved relations is often superceded by two steps back. Impoverished, dependent on aid from other countries, paranoid and with unaffordable military spending North Korea sits in stark contrast to its more prosperous neighbour in the South. The only real chance for improvement sits with the departure of its current leader Kim Jong-Il and a transition leadership which is willing to accept that no-one in the international community is interested in invading their country. Far more is the opposite as the region craves stability and peaceful co-existence.