This is from Investor’s Business Daily, by Andrew Malcom:

In the satellite photo above on a typical night, note the bustling glow of South Korea and the power-less dark North.

Obama administration officials … rushed to play down their own recent announcements of defensive U.S. military movements in response to threats and provocations from the hermit kingdom of North Korea. …

As with Iran, President Obama has chosen a diplomatic path of international sanctions to discourage the weapons program. As with Iran, they haven’t worked. So, as with Iran, Obama has chosen to apply more of them.

This winter the North set off another underground nuclear test. Then, in recent weeks its officials grew increasingly bombastic, threatening South Korea, shutting down joint economic projects and talking of imminent war with the United States. …

Reports from intelligence posts, so sophisticated they can eavesdrop on conversations between individual troop commanders, were leaked to the media, telling of ominous military movements in the North.

This is familiar behavior for Pyongyang, which regularly ramps up tensions for domestic political reasons and to be mollified by shipments of food and fuel oil and loosening of currency and trade restrictions.

It’s also possible, given the youth and inexperience of the new exalted great leader, Kim Jung-un, that the bombast reflects an internal power struggle. Few senior officials – even their first wives – get to retire in North Korea. They get dead, like Kim’s grandmother when she’d served her purpose.

North Korea is a nation of about 25 million diminutive people, a result of long-term malnutrition to support one of the world’s larger armies. A single modest bag of rice can cost a month’s salary. Brutal concentration camps house an estimated 150,000 political prisoners and release no survivors. …

The most immediate threat from North Korea … is not yet to the American mainland. It’s to South Korea (the capital of Seoul is barely 30 miles from the North). And it’s to Japan, where the U.S. maintains considerable forces, and Guam, home to major Pacific B-52 and nuclear submarine bases.

Just days ago Pentagon officials touted the build-up as involving B-52 “training mission” flyovers of the South, the deployment of anti-missile naval assets to the area and Guam, F-22 stealth Raptor flights and long-range “Hey, watch this” missions of B-2 bombers capable of carrying standard or nuclear weapons. The displays and maneuvers were meant to “reiterate the U.S. commitment to the security of our allies and partners,” spokesmen said.

Voice from a sensible American: “Well done and well said!  The iron will of Barack Obama on display. The only superpower on earth warning the potty little tyranny in North Korea to pipe down or else.”

Voice from the Obama administration: “Who said that? Why are you calling us a superpower? Don’t you know it riles all the countries of the Third World? Hurts their feelings? Suggests they are inferior? If we don’t treat them with respect they may come to hate us. Do you want to take that risk? Shut up!”

Now Obama officials appear to be caving to the North’s threats and bluffs.

“We’re trying to turn the volume down,” an unidentified [shivering] one told CNN. 

“We are absolutely trying to ratchet back the rhetoric,” another worried official told the cable channel.

“We became part of the cycle [of belligerent talk and gestures]. We allowed that to happen.”

“Oh, we are covered with shame! Are our faces red! We are soooo sorry, Kim Jung-un! Please forgive us? Here – here are some shiploads of food for you and your henchmen. Here’s some oil. And a heap of money. And more apologies.”

All delivered with a smiley face.

“Okay now?”

*

Three days ago The Blaze reported:

Amid mounting tensions with North Korea, the Pentagon has delayed an intercontinental ballistic missile test that had been planned for next week at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California …

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel decided to put off the long-planned Minuteman 3 test … because of concerns the launch could be misinterpreted and exacerbate the Korean crisis.