The harvest of the Locust Years

The North Korean nuclear test is one of those long-anticipated events that no one wanted to face.

The Clinton administration kicked the problem down the road and let the best chance at stopping the North Korean nuclear program slip by - though we are sure Jimmy Carter and co. will insist that they had things completely under control.

If anything, this entire episode reveals the complete and utter futility of negotion where there is nothing to negotiate.

North Korea understood that nuclear weapons moved them into a new category of threat and power.  Only the nuclear deterrent can stop the American military.  Short of unilateral American disarmament, nothing else would stop Kim Jong Il from reaching this goal because nothing else could guarentee the security of his regime.

Many fingers will point to the Bush administration, insisting that it did not do enough, but by the time Bush took office, his options were limited.  The 9/11 attacks limited them even more.  The US military could not undertake major operations in Korea without a more dramatic buildup - one that the Democrats would not have supported. 

As much as the "realists" on the left argued that North Korea was a greater WMD than Saddam Hussein's Iraq, there was zero support for going after Pyongyang.

We have not yet sampled the tsunami of second-guessing from the Democrats, but it is nothing more than adolescent whining: they did nothing and were prepared to do nothing - but they expected Dad to fix everything.

In his memoirs, Winston Churchill referred to the early 1930s at the "Locust Years," because while the Axis prepared for war, the West did nothing.  Only later did they wish they had not wasted them.

The 1990s were the Locust Years of our time.  Militant Islam, North Korean and Iranian nuclear ambitions - all of these problems grew and matured, ripening on the vine like dark toxic fruit - and yet the West did nothing but pretend that the thorny growths would produce daisys and sunflowers.

There is nothing left for it but to put on our gloves and tear the damn things out, for further delay will only let them spread.  If we have one complaint against the Bush administration it is that it has not been warlike enough - the military must be enlarged, for a two-front war now exists.  Similarly, the feckless games of scandal, sex and pork must cease - for there are far larger issues at stake.

The Bush administration has done much good - far better than the previous two administrations.  But now its accomplishments hang upon the bring - in Iraq, Afghanistan and North Korea.

In many ways, this test is more critical than the one given on Sept. 11, 2001.  We would like to say we think the president will pass it, but we are no longer so sure.

Surveying the blogosphere, there is some doubt as to whether the test occured and how powerful it was.

While we respect Captain Ed, his skepticism here is inappropriate.  Even if the North Korean bomb was of rediculously low yield, the psychological effect is enormous.  North Korea has missiles capable of reaching Japan at least.  Even a "weak" bomb will still be dirty and the threat of being hit by one far outstrips its military effectiveness.

Indeed, most nuclear weapons are far too inaccurate for much more than area bombing, but that is enough.

The last thing we should do is trivialize this event.  Now is a time for resolution, not wishful thinking.

The president of the United States simply cannot publicly state that North Korean's blatant act of aggression was "not big enough."

This would be nothing more than a rehash of the Clinton doctrine that terrorism doesn't rise to the level necessary for a response.  Such a position can only be seen as a challenge to produce a more serious threat.