Kim Jong boo

A long long time ago, a foreign correspondent for the Daily Telegraph was still in Vietnam after the war was over and all of his fellow correspondents had gone back home. There was nothing doing, nothing of any importance to file back to London, but his foreign desk asked him to stay on just in case. Several days went by without anything to file and no word from his London desk. One morning, he was sitting in his hotel with pen poised, wondering what he could telegram back to his desk to remind them that he was still there. Finally, after several moments of thought, he wrote: "Boo!". Now, the circumstances are totally different but I reckon Kim Jong-un has the "boo" complex. He doesn't want World War Three to descend on him but he does want Trump and co to remember he is still there. He was probably highly irritated that western newspapers interpreted his decision to put off firing ballistic missiles towards Guam as a case of him backing down after the US president's warlike threats. So, after a bit of a breather, he must have summoned his generals and told them to prepare a launch of his favourite intermediate-range missile, the Hwasong-12, and to give Japan, and the US, a scare. It was to be his "boo" moment. Make Trump and the rest of the world sit up and take notice. Boo, of course, with a ballistic missile with potential for carrying a nuclear warhead is a helluva bigger boo than the Daily Telegraph correspondent's cabled boo. But the thought struck me as I read about Kim Jong-un's latest scare tactic. Is there any other country in the world that could get away with firing a ballistic missile over the territory of another nation on its doorstep? Kim Jong-un seems confident that whatever he does, provided he doesn't actually hit anything, apart from the deep ocean, he will anger everyone but that's about it. Trump might be thinking to himself that it might be time for him to give the North Korean leader a bit of a boo moment too.