Steve Chapman: Put not your trust in missile defense

Foreign policy is often a form of theater, with elaborate rituals and pretenses that no one takes too literally. But rarely have the gimmicks of stagecraft been as obvious as in the latest standoff between North Korea and the United States.

Lately, even more than usual, the Pyongyang regime has been a picture of belligerence, threatening to hit the U.S. with a nuclear strike. A foreign ministry spokesman announced that “we will be exercising our right to preemptive nuclear attack against the headquarters of the aggressor in order to protect our supreme interest.”