First off, while a lot of this is being hyped by the press, there a few things that are different than the usual and predictable unpredictablity of the Kim Jong-Il and his father. The offspring is using the same tactics his father used, since they have always worked. Not always worked well, but worked good enough.
Being a raving lunatic leader displaying choreographed media events to further the image that his subjects are raving lunatics who will happily give their life for the raving lunatic has always been met with negotiated face saving for the lunatic, and under the table currency/trade to feed the starving lunatics.
He always looks like the savior. Keep someone starving then distributing even small amounts of food will raise you to Messiah material.
The things that bother me are:
1. A new breed and path of leadership in Japan. Koizumi has always been a domestic politician first and last, to the bitter end, and much of his power is derived from the right wing in Japan. The right wing in Japan is nothing like the right wing in any other country. These are guys who are still fighting the war and still believe in the divinity of the emperor. Scary stuff.
The man divorced his pregnant wife decades ago because the party told him to. She wasn't any good at campaigning because she had two children and a third on the way.
He is so dedicated to himself, that he has refused to even meet the adult son who was born after the divorce. Now that is a politician...
Abe, the likely successor, is reported to be, and shows all the traits of, a dunce. If you think President Bush may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but likeable, this guy Abe looks like an unlikeable butter knife.
Literally, the guy is so below average intelligence that you could pick anyone off the train and he'd be smarter than Abe. But Abe has all the traditional hallmarks of leadership potential for Japan: A family history of politics and support from the right wing still fighting the war.
Most of the Japanese leaders in the past 50 years have been at least practical. Some were scoundrels, like all countries, but practical scoundrels. They knew enough to let behind-the-scenes negotiation be the real solutions and sprinkling some money around is easy. It's only money and you can print more of it. Let the country get on with the business of Japan, which is doing business.
So, I'm not too happy about Abe because dunces can be easily led. Something tells me that he is being led by the nose right now. It could be internally, externally, or both.
2. The Foreign Minister, Aso, is truly a scoundrel. He is pushing for offensive capability... to use defensively. The problem with Aso is his history. His father ran a lethal mining company during the war. Lethal for the allied POWs who had to work as slaves there in horrendous conditions. They were starved, forced to work in the most dangerous mines where no paid worker would go and were beaten and abused and left to die if they became ill or injured. Aso is still part of the family business and is one of the extremists who insists Japan was fighting a just cause. He and his family have shown no remorse over their history and actually seem to enjoy tweaking the noses of Koreans and others in Asia by throwing out insults to them that fly in the face of reason and history.
What scares me about him is that he is smart. Smart extremists are scary - dumb ones can be toppled off their nonsense horses.
This guy makes Secretary Rice look as tough as Aunt Bea in fluffy slippers and an apron.
3. The constitutional question will likely become moot. Article 9 will likely be changed soon and it has only been words anyway. Japan has the 4th largest military budget in the world. Not bad for a nation with no military.
What it lacks is long range offensive capability - missiles. It has plenty of tanks, armoured vehicles, artillery, fighters, destroyers, etc.
----------
So what will happen? I won't make any predictions, but I don't like the increase in risks that come from having a dunce and blinkered extremist making foreign policy. People are more likely to get killed when that happens.
I think Korea is doing their usual saber rattling and expect to get something in return - food, respect, money... they're not doing anything different than they have always done.
The talk of strong economic sanctions will only exacerbate the problem. Sanctions just don't work as intended.
North Korea may have a few devices and they would most likely work. Delivery ability is sketchy, as shown by the missile tests. I think Dear Leader's son is tweaking Americas nose a bit and enjoying it. But I don't believe that he is lunatic enough to commit suicide by actually trying to deliver one. He's too much of a hedonist.
