SEOUL — A dictator madly threatens the rest of the world with his nuclear arsenal, thumbing his nose at international agreements and selling nuclear and biological weapons to fellow rogue states as he lords it over a nation of starving people.
This -- give or take a detail or two -- is the perception many outsiders have of North Korea these days as they try to make sense of the isolated state.
The North has rattled global nerves in recent weeks by admitting to an atomic weapons program, expelling nuclear inspectors, disabling surveillance cameras and threatening to pull out of a global pact designed to limit the spread of nuclear arms.
It ratcheted up the pressure Saturday by issuing a vaguely worded threat that it would take necessary countermeasures to perceived U.S. hostility. The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, meanwhile, is expected to issue a strong condemnation soon of the regime in Pyongyang, although agency officials hold out hope that the North will allow inspectors back in before the IAEA takes the issue to the U.N. Security Council.
Turn the tables, however, and you see a very different picture of North Korea, say experts who have spent much of their life watching every twist and turn of the hermit kingdom.
While the West views North Korea as a global laggard in bringing democracy, better living standards and even food to its people, analysts say North Korea looks abroad and sees decadence, soft thinking and moral depravity in the so-called new world order.
And while many in the United States believe that the world's only superpower is doing mankind a great service by ensuring global stability and preventing weapons from falling into the wrong hands, North Korea sees a bully bent on global domination.
A prevalent view in North Korea is that, with no one to check U.S. power, there's little standing in Washington's way as it shapes the post-Cold War world in its own image and makes new rules to strengthen its own control. Anyone who threatens that order -- and North Korea feels it is in the cross hairs -- faces being crushed, Pyongyang believes.
"The present situation is very serious and unpredictable," North Korea's official KCNA news agency said Saturday. North Korea "cannot but take a strong countermeasure by itself in defense of the sovereignty of the country and the right to existence."
