And pray you won't have children or grandchildren there in 2050 if accepting the killing in 1970 and this week is acceptable provided there's no more of it until then. Trouble is, North Korea's pretty much been in famine conditions since about the time your ex WAS there, largely because they've committed themselves to taking rather than producing what they need. That can't continue indefinitely, and even if it could, a confrontation between the US (existing declining superpower) and China (aspiring ascendant superpower) is all but certain.

That's what all the credit imbalances and outsourcing is really about: We don't help matters by trying to subsist on a service economy dependent on spending money we must borrow because we no longer produce wealth, but, ultimately, it's really just a symptom of a larger shift in global power. That shift threatens dire consequences, not just for South Korea, but for Japan, Pakistan, India, Indonesia and possibly even Australia. Even if the US would accept that, even if we turned our backs on Japanese allies with no more than a token military thanks to the constitution we wrote them, Britains obligations to Commonwealth nations would still spell global war in the end.

I don't relish war, but if war with North Korea and then China is delayed forty years, start teaching your children Mandarin now, because war WILL come, and if it comes in forty years, we will get our heads handed to us. Frankly, I think estimating a delay of half that time would be generous.

Incidentally, according to the Guardian articles, the destruction of the South Korean ship earlier this week is thought to be an North Korean attempt to shore up his sons political position preparatory to a power transition. Why it's acceptable for North Korea to slaughter people in other countries just to smooth a power transfer I'm not sure.