Miles to go before I sleep

Like a seventh-grade poetry class confronted with some late, sentimental Frost, The World, by which we mean a fair cross-section of the chattering and governing classes, seeks meaning in the North Korean nuclear tests. I don't know that they mean anything, but they do demonstrate the folly of trying to maintain a system where some states have nuclear weapons and some do not. Fission weapons were developed more than sixty years ago. Any group or nation with sufficient funds to build the industrial capacity to create the necessary materials can build a nuclear weapon. The possession of such weapons isn't a guarantee of security, but it certainly makes invasion and occupation by a foreign power less likely. While America and its allies bicker about whether or not deterrence works, North Korea ably demonstrates that it most certainly does.