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It didn’t take long for the headlines to confirm the item above from the latest issue of The Elliott Wave Financial Forecast. This month’s Cultural Trends section started out by noting the correlation to 1968 when tensions with North Korea also came to a boil. As noted on page 9 of this month's issue, however, there is a big difference this time around -- the nuclear stakes at the center of the crisis. Due to the more bullish long-term position of social mood in 1968, many non-nuclear nations signed on to the non-proliferation deal even though it grandfathered in the rights to nuclear arms to countries already in possession of  nuclear weapons in 1965, namely the United States, the Soviet Union (obligations and rights now assumed by Russia), France, China and the United Kingdom. These five are also the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. What’s behind their near stranglehold on nuclear weapons and its recent unraveling? Historians will undoubtedly argue the question for eons, but the simple socionomic explanation is visible in the mostly upward course of the Dow Jones Industrial Average over the last 40 years. Over that span, social mood has been predominatnly positive and rising, steadily enough to keep countries, even those in the highly volatile Middle East, abiding by the treaty. Such an unequal arrangement makes sense in a time peaceful co-existance when countries know the possessors of nuclear arms won't use them. The "stunning reversal” in the Mideast and the lost feelings of security behind the “rush to go nuclear” say that the next decline will be a much forceful bear market than that of the 1970s.