North Korean Satellite Launch

North Korea seems ready to attempt to launch its first satellite. That wouldn't concern the U. S.-- which is still technically in a state of war with North Korea-- except that an ability to orbit a satellite would also mean North Korea would have the ability to hit the U. S. with an ICBM. Couple that with nuclear bomb capability, and an American city could be at risk.

To counter such a threat, the U' S. is developing a missile defense system, but that program has been slow to mature, partly because of the inherent difficulty of the task, and partly because critics of the effort have resisted the concept. They argue that a fully effective missile defense is impossible to achueve, and further, that delivering a nuclear device to an American city would likely be done not atop a missile that could be traced back to its launch, but by some other means.

The Pyongyang regime, however, has not always been predictable; it has shown little inclination to act according to what others see as logical. Faced with a secretive, brutal dictator who has the ability to deliver nuclear bombs within a radius of thousands of miles, the rest of the world-- and the Obama administration-- will have an extremely tough decision to male.