October 7: Called it! North Korea goes ballistic (literally and figuratively)

In which, Kim Jong Un throws a nuclear hissy fit, Vladimir Putin tries a more subtle form of nuclear blackmail, and President Biden tries to prop up flagging Democratic efforts in the midterms.

Called it! North Korea goes ballistic (literally and figuratively)

Going all the way back to January when I did my assessment on the year ahead, I predicted that North Korea would feel left out of all the global drama and would sooner or later act out.

This week they did. They’ve done many missile tests throughout the year, which is fairly standard NoKo posturing/saber rattling, but firing a missile right over Japan? Yeah, that’s intentionally escalatory and seeks to provoke a crisis. This is a kid misbehaving just to get the attention of the adults, it’s your cat knocking that glass off the table because it’s there, it’s Elon Musk saying he’s gonna buy Twitter, but not, but will, but not, but will… You get the picture.
This is a move to deliberately stir the pot for a number of purposes, not the least to remind the region (and America) that there’s another nuclear power that they need to pay attention to. 

So far, Japan’s running point on the diplomatic response, but South Korea and the US were quick to respond to the North Korean show of force with a show of force of their own, one that involved air power. 

Thought bubble: the non-nuclear show of force might be an indicator for Ukraine watchers of how America and NATO may respond should Vladimir Putin follow through on his own threat to use nuclear weapons. This might have been as much about signaling Russia as it was responding to North Korea.

Putin’s losing his grip

And speaking of Russia and its nuclear threats: Russia continues to make nuclear threats. President Putin swears he’s not bluffing and some of his political allies seem intent on holding his feet to the fire on this threat. They appear to want Russia to let a nuke off the chain. However, Putin’s threats show more weakness than strength. For example, the more extreme of his allies talk about using nukes at the strategic level - as a way to stop/end the war on Russia’s terms while Putin’s threats are largely being interpreted as more limited - demonstration or tactical strikes. Given Putin’s increasingly fragile political position in Moscow, even a disagreement over nuclear escalation could have catastrophic consequences that go beyond the fallout zone.

Meanwhile, Ukraine continues to make gains on the ground, contesting territory in the very oblasts that Putin claimed to have annexed to Russia last week. So far, life as a Russian territory hasn’t been easy for residents in these contested oblasts as residential areas are still taking hits from Russian missiles.

In Russia, the partial mobilization announced a couple of weeks ago has triggered an exodus of military-aged men out of the country (with at least two showing up in Alaska) prompting many European countries to toy with the idea of refusing to allow entrance (some have done so) to these mobilization refugees. Far from being a demonstration of Russian strength and nationalism, partial mobilization appears to be turning into a vote of no-confidence by the Russian people.

Brazil’s election heads to round two

As noted last week, Brazilian voters went to the polls on Sunday in a tightly contested election between conservative strongman Jair Bolsanaro and left wing former president turned convicted corruption magnate turned political comeback kid Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (aka Lula). 

Once again, polls predicting a win for Lula turned out to be wrong as Bolsonaro closed the polling gap down the stretch and the presence of additional candidates in the fields ensured that neither Bolsanaor nor Lula won a majority.