North Korea has caused headaches and sleepless nights for many over the last few years. This will be particularly true if you live in South Korea or Japan. Anyone who has read Joel Rosenberg’s 2008 novel Dead Heat will also have cause for even higher levels of anxiety over the current North Korean conflict.
CBN sums up Rosenberg’s chilling plot:
In Dead Heat, nuclear warheads are launched from container ships perched in nearby waters, not far from our eastern and western coasts. With well-planned, synchronized hits, the enemy takes out Washington D.C., Langley, New York City, and the part of California where and when the Republicans happen to be holding their caucus and the President will make an appearance…Perhaps most startling is how the terrifying scenario appears entirely plausible.
Rosenberg has proven to be a shrewd observer. The scenario for his book was drawn from dynamics existing in the period of the book’s conception. Several years later, Front Page’s Matthew Vadum writes:
Less than six months into Donald Trump’s presidency America has awakened to the nightmare of a North Korea armed with intercontinental ballistic missiles that the Trump administration says are capable of reaching Alaska.
Interestingly Vadum points to the negligence of the Clinton and Obama Administrations for the nightmarish situation we’re forced to live with now. He notes that in 1994, Clinton struck an agreement between the US and North Korea which would achieve “an end to the threat of nuclear proliferation on the Korean Peninsula.”
North Korea had agreed to freeze its nuclear program and accept inspection of its existing facilities. This should sound familiar. Does the word “Iran” ring any bells? President Obama not only followed the same Clinton blueprint on North Korea, he extended it to Iran.
Whenever I think of the North Korean nuclear dilemma, I’m reminded of Israel’s bombing of Syrian facilities in 2007. Many pundits believe this was a nuclear facility in the planning. Moreover, according to some observers Syria was:
…constructing a nuclear reactor whose design was supplied by North Korea, and doing so with North Korean technical assistance.
I find it interesting how three of the world’s most worrisome nations have direct and indirect links to Israel. See also North Korea’s April 2017 threat of “a merciless, thousand fold punishment” upon Israel.
Back to Jerusalem spokesman, Eugene Bach, has recently addressed the North Korean problem. The title of his passionate talk, Dooms Day In North Korea, highlights his concerns. Many of the following points are taken from his briefing.
Like Vadum, Bach notes the recent NK missile experiment. He says it achieved exactly what Kim Jong-un intended. Depending on the data source, the missile flew an altitude of about 1,500 plus miles and covered 580 miles distance in around 40 minutes. The arch was set high enough so that it wouldn’t reach other countries and designed to crash “safely” in the Sea of Japan.
Kim J essentially sent out the message to the US (and others) that North Korea now had long-range missile capability. Notably, Bach suspects that NK is always further along in its program than is usually assumed by pundits.
One reason for NK’s success with its program is that Kim J repays failure with execution. That’s always a great motivator. Remember that Kim J is also suspected to have had his half brother assassinated in Malaysia.
That North Korea may not currently possess nuclear capabilities isn’t comforting. Bach points out that – if you’re going to die – being nuked is far more preferable than dying slowly and painfully from a biological weapon attack. His musings on the experiences of Vietnam prisoners is enlightening.
As a side note, Bach is an ex marine who has served in Iraq. He says that the US had found “military items” buried in the sand. Notwithstanding this, we know that Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons on his own people. And now we find the same with Syria’s Assad. Will North Korea be next?
Bach addresses the issue of sanctions. First of all, remember that sanctions and signed agreements have been ineffective against Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. But North Korea’s economy is already so devastated (famine etc) that sanction programs will not work. It wants to be self reliant and its situation is partly self-imposed. As Bach notes, even humanitarian projects have to be undertaken under the guise of business ventures.
Furthermore, Kim J seems to be set on a mission of confrontation with the US. He has already begun to poison the minds of North Korean against Donald Trump. Bach suspects that he’s preparing the nation for war. I agree.
This raises a series of unanswerable questions and frightening possible scenarios.
How would the US respond to an attack? Can they successfully attack North Korea’s mobile missiles? Would China ever sanction a pre-emptive attack by the US or a group of nations of North Korea? And how might all this escalate? What about the innocent people living daily under this potential scenario in both North and South Korea?
Can the United Nations help? A better question is to ask: has the UN ever helped prevent a potential conflagration? I’m reminded of the UN’s involvement in Israel’s wars. It always ignored Israel’s enemies. It is a one-sided toothless tiger.
How do we stop North Korea? Can we fix the problem? No, we can’t! We never have been able to ultimately solve these problems.
North Korea is similar to the Islamic extremist dilemma. Both are suicidal. Kim Jun-un is happy to bring everything down around him, just like Islamic terrorists are willing to die for Allah. There is no human solution.
At the end of his talk, Eugene Bach admonishes his listeners to pray. God is the only solution to this gospel-rejecting world’s most vexing concerns. The world’s problems won’t be ultimately solved until Christ’s return. We’re even told that they will exacerbate.
I have no idea what impact North Korea will have from an eschatological viewpoint (if any). And no one else does, really. One can only speculate. Somehow I doubt it will ever attack America. Whatever the case, we should pray for God’s providential intervention.
What we can be assured of, though, is that the Lord will one day return to set things right. This is what we look forward to with confidence and joy. We place our trust entirely in Him.
Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion, for behold, I come and I will dwell in your midst, declares the LORD. And many nations shall join themselves to the LORD in that day, and shall be my people. And I will dwell in your midst, and you shall know that the LORD of hosts has sent me to you. And the LORD will inherit Judah as his portion in the holy land, and will again choose Jerusalem.” Be silent, all flesh, before the LORD, for he has roused himself from his holy dwelling. Zech 2:10-13
Maranatha!
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