The economy, the Bailout, the increasingly-intrusive government is unimportant! We can make sacrifices with our lives and economic situation if it is for Homeland Defense!

We've always been at war with Eastasia!

North/South Korea is not worth one drop of American blood.

Leave Korea to the Koreans.

(And rightly so; they have no business scaring their peaceful neighbours such as Japan. As I understood it, the missile stayed on an acceptable course, completed the launch after which the satellite started broadcasting some patriotic songs. So far, so good…)

Interesting theory that the DPRK wants publicity on its military capabilities so it can weapons to other third world countries.

Not if Vladimir Putin and his second in command, Dmitry Medvedev, have anything to say about it.

I suspect that Americans are not aware of the chain of events military action, at this point in time, would set in motion. Sadly to say, most of my fellow countrymen seem clueless about the realities on the ground here in Korea. Also, they seem to have amnesia when it comes to remembering they’re in debt to the Chinese (Is it a trillion dollars?) and that the Chinese are not going to sit quietly by as the United States bombs an ally on their border. Additionally, they miscalculate the violent response of North Korea, which now has—what is it—six nuclear warheads. The United States is in no shape for another large scale war at this point. The threat from the North is real; however, it is not worth a full scale war. Besides, it would make a mess of things for those of us who live in Seoul.

“I think they want to show the world they can defend themselves, launch a satellite and complete some research, all in one go.”

True, but don’t forget Cordelia, they want to show potential buyers the quality of their product.

I can't imagine how Americans can be 'scared' of a country like North Korea.

Did they survey confirm that the respondants knew how small North Korea is, how poor it is and how far away from the United States?

That's like a horse being scared of a hedgehog!

Don't Americans ever get sick at their country playing world police and getting critisised for it?

US media must have done fantastic amounts of sensationalising and scaremongering to get people that whipped up. The Cold War is over! It's sad that people can't see past hyped up media reports.

As for the actual 'threat':

Surely surrounding nations could easily intercept any missiles from North Korea if it turned out to be needed. Bombing of Korean targets followed by a ground war would lead to the deaths of thousands.

I don't think North Korea has got any plans of attacking any country other than possibly the South (which they would like to 'liberate' but know they can't).

I think they want to show the world they can defend themselves, launch the satellinte and complete some resarch, all in one go.

Other countries regularly test missiles and launch satellites, why is this so different?