FutureScanner: North Korea Brass May Press Reset Button At Kim's Expense

As Kim Jong-un's bravado turns to conspicuously self-destructive behavior, such as yesterday's shutdown of the huge joint North-South industrial park, look for push back from the North's military. Possibilities:

1. Perhaps the brass who run North Korea are setting up their "Supreme Leader" for a fall. Encourage his public belligerence, then say he's gone too far, and further entrench military rule.
2. Perhaps the generals enjoy a free ride on Kim's rhetoric, gaining ever greater respect and power, while having no intention of following orders.
3. Alternatively, watch for a putsch by a core of truly patriotic generals and Chinese collaborators. Rational men do not want to drop a missile on Hawaii that would trigger a response by the United States like that to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. 

Update for Kim: Hawaii is a state of the Union. It is one of 50 that do not have to hope America will fulfill cold-war era mutual defense treaties, like South Korea or Japan.

World War II ended badly for Japan, with nuclear strikes that cost the country more than "face." The United States later helped rebuild Japan into a global industrial giant, but the price the Japanese paid for renewal is probably not a bill that The Democratic People's Republic of Korea wants to pay.

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