While people's minds were still focused on the events in Boston this week (see later in this article for more), some quietly disturbing news emerged from North Korea.
One of my favourite questions in recent years has been what is the difference between North Korea and Iran? The answer being, of course, that North Korea does have for certain a nuclear bomb.
And the rocket launchers capable of firing them (though whether with any great accuracy or efficiency is another matter).
And a régime run by the third generation of a family of absolute nutcases fully capable of threatening to launch such a bomb, and a military that is fairly determined to show off its muscle.
There are some 28,000 American troops based in South Korea, who could be targeted by the madmen running the government in Pyongyang. That they would be the sole target though takes some believing - the government and people of the South will not just be bystanders in all this.
The theory that these weapons are intended to hit American territory, as some have claimed on the Internet in recent weeks, fails one very significant test. Distance.
The weapons that the North Koreans have set up as a threat have a range of 500 kilometres. The nearest major American state, Hawaii, is some 7,000 kilometres away.
Even the Japanese, who are increasingly disturbed by what is going on in Pyongyang, find themselves over 1,200 km away, which is again outside the range of the missiles in question.
Of course there is the question of nuclear fallout. The régime in North Korea, which seems to all intents and practical purposes solely engaged in the exercise of threatening South Korea, seems hardly concerned that the fallout from any weapon that they launch would also affect them directly! And it would also affect Japan, which us why the Japanese are rightly concerned.
But wharrever else, American readers have no reason to fear that, say, Indianapolis or Biloxi are under threat. Directly at least.
So context is everything. And this also applies to the strategic aftermath of the events this week in Boston.
Whereas American territory may not be directly involved in the events on the Korean peninsula, the events surrounding the struggle for Chechnyan independence inflicted themselves upon Americans last week, like it or not.
In my initial assessment of this problem - in the part of this item which I am now rewriting - I somewhat misread the Chechnyan situation. So imagine instead Palestine. The Palestinians are nearly all hostile to Israel, but on the one side you have Fatah which simply wants an independent Palestinian state, while on the other hand you have Hamas who want both a Palestinian state and an strictly Islamic one at that.
Chechnya's independence movement has something of a similar split, but the extreme Islamic wing is far more powerful. It is notable that a number of Chechnyan mercenaries have rolled up fighting for Al Qaeda's causes in other parts of the world. The influence of the extreme Islamic radicals does not stop when leaving Chechnya for other parts of southern Russia either. Islamic radicals have caused sufficient problems in neighbouring Dagestan over the years.
The easy mistake to make (as I did earlier this week) is to consider that the Chechnyan radicals would primarily target the traditional enemy, Russia. So why would they target the USA where the Chechnyan independence movement received some tacit support in the 1990s - not directly from the US government, but from some political figures who still tend to treat Russia as if the Cold War had never ended?
The answer does not fall into the "he who is not my enemy is my friend" category. Certain American politicians may well appreciate the arguments that Chechnya has been fighting for independence for years and may well have a case.
Add the Islamic militant element, and suddenly the USA (which sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan) is an enemy of Islam, and therefore an enemy of Chechnyan independence (or at least the predominant Islamic wing of the movement). Its relationship with Russia is actually irrelevant, when seen in this context.
Over the past 5-6 years the elder of the Tsarnaev brothers, Tamerlan, had become increasingly radicalised. His commitment to the extreme version of Islam had become virtually total, and while living in the USA he had also found himself alienated from the people and the culture. That an Islamic extremist, who finds himself alienated from the country in which he lives, would place bombs in public places without remorse may be shocking but not that surprising given the Al Qaeda we know and despise.
That his American wife knew nothing? Well given the role of women in fundamentalist Islam, are they suppose to know much? That his mother still thinks that it is a set-up and that he is innocent on all counts? Ditto!
The younger brother is more difficult to fathom. He had become an American citizen, had American friends, and indulged in the notoriously un-Islamic practices of smoking pot and listening to rap. His parents were back in Dagestan, and his elder brother was a sort of father figure and he was supposed to do what he was told? That he turned up for an event that led to 3 people being killed and over 100 injured - some of them maimed for life? And didn't object?
That takes some understanding. At 19 we can still be incredibly immature. It is though also interesting just how willing he has been to reveal the whole story as to what went on - the motives usw - without coercion.
Eventually the cause was Islam more than Chechnya, the rants of a now dead Yemeni-American imam, the lingering hatred caused by the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Chechnya and its struggle for independence was a backdrop but no more eventually.
But if there is a lesson in international affairs that needed highlighting, it is that relationships between some Western countries and Russia (notably the USA and to some extent the UK) need to change. Germany has already good relationships with Russia and could help bring the parties together.
But the situation where dissidents from Russia's mainly Muslim Southern provinces can play on the distrust that exists between Russia and other countries helped contribute substantially to the events in Boston last week. Some acknowledgement is also needed just what problems the Russians have had to face with these extremists and often had little choice but to pursue actions that we might regard as severe.
Without some resolution of the diplomatic problems involved though, a repeat of what happened in Boston may not be all that far away. Failure to cooperate with a party that you may not like that much is only going to play into the hands of your common enemies! With the obvious consequences.
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