Watching in apprehension

Here New Zealand lies as a Garden of Eden — for all its faults — in the South Pacific thousands of kilometres from  troubled places.

While the wider world impinges via myriad interconnections and our way of life is utterly dependent on the global economy, this is a enviable position.

Our privileged place should be all the more valued as bombastic United States President Donald Trump blusters and bumbles and fires up rhetoric against North Korea. 

President Kim Jong-un, of course, responds in kind. Perversely, he could be the more rational of the two, for his consistent defiance is aimed at preserving his family dictatorship.

He has seen what the United States did to Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Muammar  Gaddafi in Libya.  

Nuclear weapons and the ability to use them are the ultimate deterrent.  Why would he not strive at all costs to acquire them, along with effective missile systems?

That is something both Mr Trump and most Americans do not seem to understand. 

They, in their might and power, find it difficult to see others’ point of view, while empathy and deep understanding for an erratic narcissist like Mr Trump is inconceivable.

Naturally, no-one wants further proliferation of nuclear weapons and the world would be a much safer place if the "hermit" state was confined to conventional armaments.  But achieving that is proving next to impossible.

Sanctions in the past have been undermined by Chinese interest in preserving stability across its border.

There was  good news on this front last weekend when the United Nations Security Council backed $US1billion ($NZ1.38billion) in sanctions. The move might not be a game-changer but it is firm while relatively restrained action to try to help contain North Korea. China has to play a role in any solutions, rare Security Council agreement was achieved, and South Korea’s new president, Moon Jae-in, has been supporting an engagement strategy.

A few days later Mr Trump belligerently said: "North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States."

He vowed: "They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen".  

Does he mean it, in which case the consequences are unthinkable, or is it just a response in kind to President Kim, himself potentially unstable?   North Korea then announced it was "carefully examining the operational plan for making an enveloping fire at the areas around Guam".

History is strewn with bungling and threats leading to war.  World War 1, 100 years ago, is a classic case.  

With cool heads and sensible, rational analysis such disasters should never happen.

But start drawing lines in the sand, start threatening, start backing nations into corners and matters escalate.  

Surely, the odds must remain heavily against war blowing up. But going to the brink increases the chances of toppling  into it.

Talk of "fire and fury" will stir the pulses of some Americans.  Mr Trump must enjoy giving President Kim some of his own medicine, as will others. 

And going to war is a time-honoured, albeit risky,  way of recovering lost popularity. 

Wiser heads in the United States as well as the checks in the American system have so far constrained Mr Trump’s excesses. Can they do so this time?

How distressing, too, that this blew up as the 72nd  anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Ngasaki was commemorated on Wednesday.

Living in this quiet corner a long way from the Korean Peninsula is a relief.  But there is also a sense of helplessness as the world watches in apprehension. 

The world could not vote for reckless Donald Trump, but could bear the consequences of American folly.