In today's globalized world, we sometimes forget how intense the hostility between nations can be - especially when one of them is a paranoid dictatorship.

But watch the above video from North Korean state television of an angry mob in Pyongyang. What are they angry about? The crimes of this poor effigy, which happens to be that of South Korea's president, Lee Myung-bak.

But, no, death by hanging isn't even enough for the dummy. So they set attack dogs on it. Not enough? Try a big bad military tank. Didn't do the job? Throw rocks at the dismembered head. (Don't worry, this isn't a human it's just plastic.) Finally, job done, one hopes.

It is a mysterious country, North Korea. We rarely get pictures from there, but I guess this is how they want the world to see them.

By Fareed Zakaria, CNN

It's not all missiles and mischief in Pyongyang these days. Despite the dire state of the nation, the North Koreans have had time for fun. Earlier this month they threw a food festival replete with sturgeon, soft-shell crab, bullfrog and other "famous dishes." The sign says, in English, "Cook Festival of Holiday of April."

Check out the video above. This ridiculous display was put on by the government in a nation where as many as 3 million people are at risk of starvation. And to make matters worse, North Korea recently got cut off from American food aid.

North Korea: The land of unique tastes and dreadful policies.

Editor's Note: Robert E. Kelly is a Senior Analyst at Wikistrat and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and Diplomacy at Pusan National University, South Korea. A longer version of this essay may be found at his website, Asian Security Blog.

By Robert E. Kelly - Special to CNN

Why does North Korea seem to get away with provocations like last week's rocket test? Jennifer Lind argues that North Korea manages to deter counter-strikes through a bizarre mixture of the ‘madman theory’ (what will the loopy, hard-drinking, megalomaniacal Kim family do next?), regional fear of what would follow a North Korean implosion, and traditional nuclear deterrence.

None of that is wrong, but I think she’s missing the big factor – South Korean domestic politics. Lots of countries and other international actors do crazy stuff; the question is whether the target wants to counterstrike and risk escalation. So it is South Korea ultimately (not the U.S. or Japan) that decides whether or not to hit back. And South Korea doesn’t want to strike back for two reasons. One, South Korean population centers are extremely vulnerable to Northern aggression. Two, South Koreans just don’t care that much about North Korea anymore.

FULL POST

Editor’s Note: Gordon G. Chang is a columnist at Forbes.com. He is the author of The Coming Collapse of China and Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes On the World. Follow him on Twitter.

By Gordon G. Chang - Special to CNN

On Friday, State Department spokesman Mark Toner announced that after North Korea’s failed but highly provocative long-range missile test, the U.S. would not provide “nutritional assistance” to the troubled state as contemplated by an agreement announced February 29. The operating assumption in Washington is that food aid helps the regime now headed by Kim Jong Un.

In some ways, that assumption is correct. Aid, after all, is fungible. Every dollar of food assistance means Kim’s government can devote one less buck to lowland agriculture and one more to improving the obvious defects of its long-range missiles.

There are many things that the Obama administration should be doing to stop North Korea’s missile program, but refusing to feed hungry and victimized people is not one of them. FULL POST

Editor's Note: Richard Haass is the president of the Council on Foreign Relations. This is his First Take.

By Richard Haass, CFR.org

North Korea's failed attempt to launch the unha-3, a new three-stage long-range ballistic missile, is for obvious reasons welcome. More than anything else it demonstrates limits to the DPRK's technical prowess. And it means that the United States and the world have more time before they must contend with the possibility that the world's most closed and militarized country has the capacity to launch missiles, conceivably with nuclear warheads, across great distances.

But any sigh of relief must be tempered. First, the fact that the test took place at all in the face of widespread international opposition demonstrates North Korea's ability to defy external pressure and isolation. It also means that China, the country with the most influence over North Korea, is still unwilling to use that influence in a decisive manner. FULL POST

Editor's Note: The following is reprinted with the permission of the Council on Foreign Relations.

North Korea's attempt to put a $1 billion satellite into orbit failed on Friday when its rocket booster exploded in mid-air shortly after liftoff. Prior to launch, the United States and its allies had condemned the launch as a pretext to test controversial ballistic missile technology. The disaster marks a public humiliation for the new government of Kim Jong-un, which was using the event to commemorate the 100th birthday of the country's founding patriarch Kim Il-sung. Washington has suspended some 240,000 tons of much-needed food aid in response to the North Korea provocation (NYT). Despite the setback, Kim Jong-un accepted his position as head of the national defense commission from Communist Party. FULL POST

Editor's Note: Jennifer Lind is an assistant professor of government at Dartmouth College. This was originally published in Foreign Affairs.

By Jennifer Lind, Foreign Affairs

U.S.–North Korea relations recently enjoyed 16 optimistic days: between February 29, when Pyongyang signed the “Leap Day” arms control agreement with the United States, and March 16, when it announced plans to conduct the very kind of rocket launch that it had just forsworn. Reacting to the announcement of the satellite launch, which is intended to commemorate the centenary of founding father Kim Il Sung’s birth, U.S. President Barack Obama warned North Korea about the consequences of provocation and called on China to stop “turning a blind eye” to the North Korean nuclear program.

The denunciations Obama and others have been making sound like a familiar refrain. “Rules must be binding, violations must be punished, words must mean something,” Obama said in his now-famous Prague speech, in which he condemned North Korea’s April 2009 rocket launch. But the rules aren’t binding, North Korea’s violations aren’t meaningfully punished, words are mostly just words, and China does little.

FULL POST

Editor's Note: Scott A. Snyder is senior fellow for Korea studies and director of the program on U.S.-Korea policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. He blogs at Asia Unbound, where this piece originally appeared.

By Scott A. Snyder, CFR.org

As over fifty world leaders gather in Seoul to address the task of how to more effectively secure nuclear materials, their landing path at Incheon airport will take them within range of North Korean surface-to-air missiles.  Although North Korea’s nuclear and missile capabilities are not formally on the agenda for the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit, Pyongyang’s leaders have done their best to ensure that North Korea won’t be forgotten in the global confab, first by announcing plans to launch a satellite in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of the birth of North Korea’s founder Kim Il-sung, and then by threatening war if the summit issues a statement on Pyongyang’s nuclear program.

The United States and DPRK in their respective February 29 “Leap Day” statements tentatively seemed ready to hit the “reset” button in U.S.-DPRK relations, but Pyongyang has apparently hit the “replay” button instead by rewinding to the events surrounding North Korea’s long-range rocket launch in 2009. FULL POST

Editor's Note: The following is reprinted with the permission of the Council on Foreign Relations.

North Korea announced plans to launch a satellite next month, which U.S. and UN officials have previously condemned as a pretense for testing controversial long-range ballistic missile technology (NYT). The decision comes just two weeks after the country surprised the world by announcing its intention to suspend uranium enrichment, permit UN inspectors, and freeze long-range missile testing in return food aid–a deal widely expected to prompt broader multilateral talks aimed at North Korean denuclearization. April's planned launch–North Korea's first such test in three years–drew quick censure from the United States and its regional allies, and will likely complicate renewed efforts at diplomacy. FULL POST

By Fareed Zakaria, CNN

What do you get when you put 40 heads of state 30 miles away from a rogue nuclear nation? The answer: Nervous heads of state. The solution? A little showing off.

Check out the video above: Sartorially splendid tough guys rappelling down the front of a building with guns drawn. Black tie tough girls taking out the enemy with a swift kick to the face.

No, this isn't some Asian James bond film. This is real life - or at least a drill.

South Korea is just a hop, skip and a jump from the DMZ, and South Korea's version of the White House, called the Blue House, will host the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit at the end of the month.

This week their presidential security service was on display, showing their derring-do and their ability to take out a bad guy - and fast - just in case anybody tries to pull anything.

The response from the government of young Mr. Kim across the border? They think the whole summit is a childish farce.