The posturing between the United States and North Korea seems to have reached a new pitch with yesterday's outburst from President Trump.
Following intelligence reports that the North Koreans may now have succeeded in developing a missile which can deliver a nuclear warhead, allied to suggestions that they may consider targeting US bases in the Pacific, President Trump stated that any further threats against the US would be met with "fire and fury".
While rhetoric is one thing and actual war something quite different, the brutal and tyrannical North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un, and the frankly bonkers US President are probably the 2 most frightening people in the world at the moment. Neither will want to be seen to be weak and so neither will want to back off; both are bombastic and could easily reach a point of no return. Both have a finger on the nuclear button.
For decades, the threat of nuclear warfare has revolved around relations between the US and Russia, although several other countries with enmities have also achieved nuclear capability. China, India and Pakistan, Israel and others all have that capability and any of them might conceivably resort to its use under extreme provocation, however, North Korea is a very different 'kettle of fish'. Here, a dynastic megalomaniac rules the roost and normality doesn't apply, while Donald Trump is the most unpredictable US President ever.
Could we really be headed for war, even nuclear war ?
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