Historically, North Korean threats were nothing more than sabre rattling akin to a young child acting out for attention. However, North Korea today is more unstable than ever. Its people are starving, its economy is virtually non-existent, and it now has nuclear weapons (thanks to the last 3 US Presidents). Worse yet, Kim Jong Un, the nutcase boy “leader” that makes Caligula look like a decent guy, has his finger on the trigger ready to initiate a major war. So what makes this escalation by North Korea something we should take more serious than the countless previous flare-ups on the peninsula? In short, North Korea isn’t the issue, but its puppet master China is the game changer. China is in trouble and could use this latest escalation to turn the skirmish into a hot war. The probability of this is higher than it has been in since the end of the Cold War and it is making analysts take the threats far more seriously. Read more