Cold War II Looks Better

The announcement that six-party talks with North Korea are starting up again puts recent Cold War II events in a better light. All of a sudden it seems pertinent that America told the world that China has deployed the DF-21 aircraft carrier killing missile. Shouldn't China be rattling China's saber, not America? Now it looks kind of phony yesterday when the US defense establishment solemnly told the globe that they were really really afraid of the DF-21. Now I'm recalling how China's Silkworm missile only damaged but didn't sink that British aircraft carrier back in the Falkland War.
The six-party talks make everything look better. Because it is so willing to play hardball, Team Obama kicks ass at diplomacy. Team Obama is going into the six-party talks with Russia fired up and singing Yankee Doodle Dandy because of the new START treaty. Japan has grown a set of cojones; witness the troops and bases it is establishing on contested islands. So Japan is going into the talks fired up. South Korea has also grown a set recently. And China goes into the talks thumping its chest after America praises its new missile.
So these talks should actually bear fruit, unlike the previous six-party talks, which only made the problem worse.
And the stock market is beginning to realize that it has been valuing South Korean stocks incorrectly as KOSPI multiples expand toward the level of other emerging market bourses. In time North Korea is going to take the same path as Vietnam and China, transforming communism into capitalism. At that point North Korea is going to become a tremendous asset to South Korea rather than a deadly foe. It only seems impossible because we are wrapped up in day to day drama. Consider: Vietnam is currently America's de facto ally, and truthfully the most important one in Asia, the only one that China truly fears. It's as if the Vietnam War never happened. Someday we'll say the same thing about the Korean War and North Korea.
Cold War II will take some bad turns in the future and it will hurt stocks when that happens. But for now it doesn't look too bad.