Rocket Rattling

North Korea has announced it may no longer recognize the armistice it has with the United States.  Since no peace treaty was ever signed after the Korean War, the two nations have been at war in a legal, technical sense all this time, but the armistice stopped the bloodshed.

Of course, the North Korean military poses no threat to America, though it could do horrendous damage to South Korea.  Pyongyang, however, does have both nuclear and rocket technology-- despite the efforts of at least three successive American administrations to curb or stop both programs.  A primitive nuclear warhead atop a simple North Korean ICBM could wipe out an American city.  That possibility is precisely the reason many nations have been wary of the North's space program-- they saw it as a cover for the development of ballistic missile technology.

The regime in Pyongyang would not survive a missile attack on the United States.  Presumably, it understands that.  If it doesn't, however, the damage in human terms from such an attack could be horrific.