This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, December 13, 2012.

I'm Caleb Brown.

North Korea's missile launch may be more about getting attention than anything else,

and it's well past time for the United States to shift

much of the burden of North Korea's activity to countries like South Korea and China.

That according to Doug Bandau, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute.

North Korea claims that it fired off this rocket to put a satellite into orbit and they appear to put something into orbit.

However, our presumption is they're really doing a missile test.

What they want to do is have an intercontinental missile that can reach the United States

and elsewhere around the world.

There may be a number of things going on here.

Part of it is internal prestige. They try to

launch in April. It failed. It was embarrassing. Part of it maybe they're trying to

muck up the elections next week on the week away, the 19th of December. there's an election in South Korea

they're shooting this off one week before the South Korean vote that could

have unpredictable impacts there they're probably trying to put pressure on the

US reminding the US they're still around.

They'd like to extort more money from America and from South Korea.

You know, there are a number of things going on.

It strikes me, and maybe all of these things are going on if North

Korea's attempt is to gain more attention from the United States what is and

should be the reaction from countries like China well you know China, you know, supposedly is helping us with

...