If North Korea launches a "test" ICBM...

...The USA ought to take that as an opportunity to test our shiny new ABM system! According to FOX News, the US has just activated it's Anti Ballistic Missile system in case North Korea does decide to give its nascent ICBM technology a real world test by launching the prototype ICBM it has been fueling. Presumably, our ABM system won't act unless the NK missile heads in our direction. I think we should just take out their ICBM if it is launched, as long as we can do so without putting innocent civilians at serious risk.

Since there is absolutely no reason we shouldn't take NK's actions as hostile if they launch, and we have a need to learn just how effective the ABM system the US has developed to thwart first strikes by NK and/or other recalcitrant nations really is, why not let it get safely over some reasonably clear part of the ocean and then blow it up, just to know if and hopefully show that we can (and will) do so when provoked.

The odds of anyone getting hurt are minute and the propaganda value if the United States of America is successful in taking out the North Korean ICBM in mid-flight is tremendous. Thinks of it in these terms:

1. North Korea rattles a primitive but potentially deadly saber.
   
2. The United States of America used its new, largely untried shield.
3. The shield, a defensive weapon, either fails in a rather feeble manner, or succeeds in a rather dramatic, probably spectacular (if captured on video) display of technological superiority -- it breaks the saber without hurting the saber-rattler.
   
4. The politicians and diplomatic immediately do what they do best: produce incredible volumes of public hot air, signifying nothing.
5. Real world international relations between NK and the USA shift accordingly -- the fact that the USA makes a real effort to blow their puny but significant missile out of the sky carries the only message the USA needs to convey. If we succeed in destroying the NK missle, the NK suffers nothing worse than public humiliation and the lost of a little test data -- the missile isn't meant to be reusable, after all.
   
6. For the USA, it is a win-win demonstration. See below.

If the USA shoots down the NK missile with no civilian casualties anywhere, it is a huge win for us. It demonstrates that we are serious, that we will act if need be, and that we can show restraint -- it is obvious we could just nuke the shit out of North Korea and there is nothing they could do to stop us except whine a little before being vaporized.

If the USA fails to shoot down the NK missile, or comes close, or hits it but doesn't destroy it, or is unlucky enough to have debris or other effects directly linkable to the ABM system cause harm to innocent civilians, it can just ride out the media frenzy that North Korea and the loony Leftists of the world will furiously foment.

Guess what? The USA does not need the UN. The UN needs the USA. Much of the world will thank the USA for just saying, "Enough!", meaning what it says and backing up its statement with limited, strictly defensive action -- the implication being that we could just say we would launch several of our own very effective, extremely accurate ICBMs at North Korea should they fail to head our warning not to try out theirs. Of course we would be nice enough to mention that our ICBMs have passed their field tests and would be armed with rather clean but decidedly deadly thermonuclear warheads if we have to resort to that sort of thing.