This is the Cater Daily Podcast for Thursday, July 6, 2017. I'm Caleb Brown.

North Korea's July 4th missile test was presented as a gift to the United States with the ominous

suggestion that more gifts might follow. Cato Senior Fellow Doug Bandau recently

returned from North Korea, discusses the regime, and how their new plays are being

received in Washington. North Korea has tested ICPMs and there is a growing

sense that at some point one of those could reach the United States.

How concerned are you about that?

Well, no one thinks it's a good idea for this regime to have nuclear weapons and especially

long-range missiles.

On the other hand, we've lived with really ugly regimes

having nuclear weapons and long-range missiles before.

Joseph Stalin had them, Mao Zedong had them. you know these are two of the greatest mass murderers in human history.

You know I think the critical thing about North Korea to recognize is this is a regime bent on survival, not suicide.

I tell people at Kim Jong-un, the so-called

Supreme Leader, you want these virgins in this world,

not the next.

So I don't think he will intentionally start anything. What makes me nervous

frankly is more a sense of mistake, of error, you know bad judgment and that frankly could

come not only on the North Korean side, it could come on the US side.

All right, so are we to take any solace in the fact that North Korea has not attacked South Korea?

Yes, I think what it shows is deterrence works.

That is, it's a regime that knows it would lose.

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