Behind the 'crazy' mask of Kim

North Korea's young leader Kim Jong-un is using his forebears' time-tested "crazy-guy-in-the-neighborhood" strategy, senior US officials say, but with a provocative new twist - aiming Pyongyang's threats directly at the United States.
There are indeed signs of an earlier method in what might seem like Kim's rhetorical madness, which US policymakers say is patterned after more than a half century of rule over the reclusive state by his father and grandfather.
But with a large degree of uncertainty surrounding Kim and limited US intelligence on North Korea's leadership, Washington is still trying to gauge how far the untested 30-year old leader might go to prove himself to his people, and his generals, or to make a belligerent point to South Korea's new president and the world.
North Korea's surprise announcement on Tuesday of plans to restart a long-shuttered nuclear reactor, while not issued by Kim personally, could further raise the stakes in his standoff with the West.
US officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss months of North Korean threats and actions, including missile and nuclear tests, that pose a challenge to President Barack Obama's policy of "strategic patience" toward Pyongyang.
That policy - a refusal to offer new incentives to Pyongyang until it suspends its disputed nuclear program - has yielded little but defiance since Obama took office in 2009.
Analysts say Kim is under pressure from the country's military elites. Though Kim has fired or demoted some generals since taking power, Pyongyang's military leadership remains a political force to be reckoned with.
He has sought to placate them by paying homage to the "Military First," or Songun, philosophy his late father, Kim Jong-il, preached to justify use of impoverished North Korea's scarce resources to build a 1.2 million-strong army and a nuclear weapons program, Asia experts say.
Still, the Obama administration insists there is no cause for alarm.
Pyongyang's assertion over the weekend that it had entered a "state of war" with South Korea over its joint military drills with the United States, has not led to corresponding movements of North Korean forces, the White House said.
US officials insisted that even with this new variation of what he called North Korea's "crazy man strategy," Kim would not succeed in getting Washington and its allies to "buy them off" with aid, fuel or other concessions, as previous US administrations have periodically tried to do.