[neverevergiveup]

“If they were as suicidal as you seem to think they were, they wouldn’t have remained behind the DMZ for as long as they have. Suicidal regimes don’t tend to hold power for 60 years.”

Suicidal may not, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerously irrational. Cuba has survived as a communist country for almost 60 years, and if you read the declassified documents from the USSR, Castro wrote to Moscow supporting the use of nuclear weapons against the US. Definitely not rational, and lucky for the world there were cooler and more rational heads in the USSR at that point.

[jjsheridan5]

Suicidal may not, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerously irrational.

I am not sure I agree with your definition of "irrational". Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union (and his failure to listen to his generals when it bogged down) -- that was "irrational". It was a plan which was borne out of paranoia, not reality, and had no realistic chance of success (therefore, "irrational"). What NK is doing is not irrational, at least if it is, I cannot see where. It is high stakes, to be sure. And dangerous, to be sure. But "irrational" implies a disconnect from reality that I just don't see here. He has played a high stakes game, showing the world that he has nuclear weaponry, and showing the world that he doesn't care about international norms and, in so doing, has increased, not decreased, his overall negotiating position (if not with us, necessarily, then at least with other countries in the region). How does that constitute "irrational"? It sounds more like a plan that either worked, or at least has a chance of working.

I am not trying to be argumentative. I just don't see why people see him as crazy (at least in terms of what he is doing in terms of nuclear weapons), suicidal, and irrational. And I also think it is a very dangerous thing to underestimate, or wrongly evaluate, a potential adversary.