We have Vladimir Putin starting to reacquire former Soviet states, and now that chubby kid from North Korea with the bad haircut is starting to exchange gunfire with the South Koreans. After years of chasing our proverbial shadow around the Middle East, two very real threats have emerged to the world’s safety. The question is: Are we ready to step up and handle these problems?

Kim Jong-Un is so impressed with his haircut that he decided to make it mandatory for every male in North Korea. At some point, no matter how brainwashed you are, there has to come that moment when you realize that something is very wrong. When your supreme leader wants the whole country to look like one of the Little Rascals, then that is an indication that something is very wrong.

The kid is only 31 years old, but he has already established himself as the world’s foremost authority on being completely nuts. The people of North Korea have no idea what is going on outside their borders. They honestly believe that the United States is on its knees, quivering in fear of Kim Jong-Un and his haircut. That is just going to make the very loud and explosive reality all that much more shocking when it happens.

Ever since September 11, 2001, the United States has made it a priority to have several inexplicable, but yet totally ineffective, campaigns going on in the Middle East at the same time. Our brave fighting men and women have lost their lives in the pursuit of this elusive victory that we were promised we would achieve.

We spent over a decade, and trillions of dollars, fighting an enemy we cannot see or identify. To the government’s credit, there haven’t been any major terrorist attacks like 9/11 since 2001. The Boston Marathon bombing was an isolated and tragic incident, but it was definitely not pulled off by an international terrorist organization. While things have not been quiet in the United States since 2001, the bad guys we think we are fighting have been pretty much held at bay.

Fighting terrorism is different than fighting Kim Jong-Un and Vlad, because terrorism is this idea that can spring up anywhere. Kim and Vlad are causing problems with their neighbors and they are doing it right under everyone’s noses.

Is there a connection between Kim and Vlad? I doubt it. It wouldn’t surprise me if both see each other as inferior leaders of inferior countries. But they do have a common enemy, and that would be us. What do we have? We have a military that is spread thin all over the world and a leader who is relatively clueless on what to do.

What is President Obama going to do? Threaten Vlad and Kim with military action? He tried that with Syria and wound up backing off. Granted, backing off in Syria was the right move for everyone. But it is something that Vlad has pointed to repeatedly as evidence of Obama’s weakness.

What do we have to fear from Vlad and Kim? From Vlad, there is the very real possibility that he will reoccupy all of the old Soviet states and gain control of those missile silos again. Would he use them? I’m not sure, but they would definitely give him leverage.

Kim is just lining himself up to be the chief attendant at the Korean peninsula’s biggest parking lot. I am hoping that we don’t use nukes against this idiot, and I really doubt we will. But that would not prevent him from doing something really stupid and blowing himself up. At least his hair will look great when he is disintegrated.

After years of chasing a formless enemy known as terrorism, two real threats emerge on the horizon. We are ill-equipped to deal with either threat. We do not have the resources or the leadership to back up any threats that we may make.

So what do we do? Well, the president is the one who will do the talking for us. That is why we elected him. All we can do as a population is sit back and see what happens. Hopefully, everything will just kind of bob up and down in the water until 2016. That is provided the American people make the right choice at the polls in 2016.

This is going to be interesting.

Nick Oliver is a Niagara County resident who is going in for his Supreme Leader haircut tomorrow. His column appears every Wednesday, and is a personal favorite of Vlad Putin. He can be reached at nickoliver@writeme.com.

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