This diary does not attempt to settle the question whether the USA and North Korea have already crossed the metaphorical line beyond which war is almost inevitable.
The much narrower question I address is whether a very intelligent and very well-informed person might reasonably believe that the line has been crossed.
So this diary is a meta-cognitive outline of the range of reasonable opinion about the possibility of war.
It wasn't even much of a task to find such a person.
Jinjoo Hong, president of the Korean Language Club at Iowa State University and a senior education major, said, "I know there have been many threats over the years, but this time, I think they crossed the line already. I think there are real actions this time."
This is a Korean student at Iowa State! Do you really want to match your SAT against his? They turn away at least a dozen foreign applications for every one they accept. The guy is smart!
He runs the Korea Language Club! It's a bunch of homesick expatriates yak-yak-yakking about Korea all the time! You think they don't know what's happening on the Korean Peninsula at a level of detail that the mainstream media doesn't even recognize?
So Jinjoo Hong is a very intelligent person, and very well-informed about Korean affairs, and he thinks that the USA and North Korea have already crossed the line.
Q.E.D.
If you follow the link above, in addition Jinjoo Hong's remarks, you will also encounter several other perhaps equally intelligent and equally well-informed Koreans or Korean-Americans who discuss the situation from many different but not necessarily mutually contradictory perspectives.