Sounds like an experiment in how a China/Taiwan senario might unfold. The 'disputed waters" boundaries differences in the details should be explored as to their fairness. Then before you jump off assigning blame because of the oversimplistic "he's just crazy" argument you should ask, how long should they let that dog hump its leg and call it exercise? Thats just from an objective viewpoint. Its hard to be objective when you're stuck in being subjective.
Those pot shots are costing lives, dummy! Those S Koreans are not your neighbors or family, so no big deal, right?
Kim Jong Un has to win the respect of his military leadership. While he's some kind of General himself, he's never really done anything but watch parades. Jang Song-Taek and Kim Kyong-Hui are a couple of top level crazies whom he will need to persuade he's up to the game. There may be a power struggle after the old man finally kicks, not before. Also there's the hundredth anniversary of Kim Il-Sung's birth coming up in 2012 and they'll have to celebrate some kind of victory party for that, and what better way than to launch a nuke. I would guess that right now there are some high level talks going on between China, Russia and the U.S. as to just how North Korea gets thrown under the bus, and who get's what in return. Could be some people in the North get "disappeared". If not, it's pretty much a given that North Korea launches a nuke in the not too distant future. They are not rational people, so thinking it doesn't make sense for them to do it really doesn't come into play.
When you say launching a nuke you mean just detonating one like they have in the past,not attacking anyone with one ?
Kim Jong il and all his top advisors have everything they want in life. They have women, they have power, they have all the luxuries of life and they have a country of people that treat them as gods. Why rock the boat any more than they have to. Of course Kim Jong Il is getting old, about to lose power....perhaps he wants to do one final thing to say he actually did something other than drink cognac and watch western porn movies all day.
Well, kinda. They're about escalation, negotiate and reap rewards for pretending to play nice again. Next step is to launch a nuke in the direction of the South, and it detonates in the Sea. They'll say it was a test and claim it's their water anyway. High stakes poker for sure, but again, they ain't rational. It is our response which will determine full scale war, or not. All depends on whether the guy in the oval office thinks it's politically wise at the time to cut loose or not.