Since the 1950s, the Korean Peninsula has been a hotspot for international politics, conflict, and tension. The Kim family regime has ruled the upper part of the landmass, North Korea, with an iron fist since the end of the Korean War with the United States — the citizens of the country have even been conditioned to view the ruler in power as a god. Hundreds of thousands have perished due to starvation, sickness and disease are rampant, and yet the dictator in power has always denied aid for his people because of the hatred he has fostered for America and the rest of the Western world.

Now, over 60 years since the stalemate at the end of the war, North Korea dares to threaten the United States, waving around alleged nuclear weapons like toys in the hand of an infant. Kim Jong-un, the grandson of the original Kim family patriarch Kim Il-sung, has the audacity to bring the option of nuclear warfare against the United States and its allies back to the table as a serious possibility, something which, if enacted, would surely be devastating for millions and millions of people.

It is as if Kim Jong-un is determined to throw his country, his people, and even himself into the abyss, for if the often-smiling dictator follows through with his threat of attacking the United States, he and all the rest of his country will be absolutely obliterated by our nation’s military. Controversial president Donald Trump has claimed that the nation of North Korea will be “met with fire and fury like the world has never seen” should they follow through with their threats to attack the United States. With even the most cursory of examinations of Trump’s rhetoric in the past, one can easily deduce that he is deadly serious and could possibly even use nuclear weapons of his own against the Kim regime.

Unless Kim Jong-un is a complete madman bent on plunging his country (and possibly even the world) into complete and total chaos, he will cease with his foolish posturing, accept the UN sanctions that have been placed on him, and consider why even his greatest ally, China, has begun to distance itself from his regime.