If you can put an object into orbit, you can put it into any major (US or other) city within about 45min and no one can intercept it.
I wouldn’t doubt once they get their ICBM program up if they start improving living standards. They can then adjust their GDP allocation, and reduce their investment in their military.
To be clear, completely think their government is beyond horrible. Do not support or condone in any way. That said, I’m observing their own statements & actions, which indicate they are very defensive
For the rest of the world, I don't think they "will" but I don't like that they "could". And I expect we will be paying protection money accordingly...
"Giant Evil threatens our motherland!" paranoia is very useful for keeping a closed society's dictatorship in power. Regardless of whether any Great Evil exists. Or has any interest in said motherland. Vs. over the past (say) 50 years, how many authoritarian governments have fallen, after their attempts to pivot from paranoia to more openness-and-prosperity-focused stances went wrong?
It's just that in the case of south korea the "giant evil" is a country with a military budget comparable to that of the LAPD, which would be "invading" (lol) over the most mountainous and well defended border in human history.
I don't think north korea will shift military budget away from defence as the region is getting more and more dangerous. The "liberal" Moon administration embarked on south koreas largest ever military buildup and Japan is re-arming and, for obvious historical reasons, is very hostile to north korea. Also, I don't think the North Korean government is all that competent.
Sounds a lot like the red terror propaganda you get about China, DPRK and formerly the USSR, from US media.
I mean, they basically agreed to disarmament and implemented it with nothing in return for over a decade. It took Bush tearing up the agreed framework, placing them on the axis of evil, and then the Iraq war (exemplar of what happens to states without a deterrent) for them to really reverse course on that.
Of course, that's all flushed down the toilet of history now, no such deal will be on the table again in our lifetimes.
I wouldn't hold my breath over living standards. But who knows, it's difficult to get an accurate picture of the internal situation there. Hi-res satellite pics of the garden gnomes in King Kim's garden, sure. But reliable human intelligence. Not something that that rapists, murderers and torturers at Guk-Jeong-Won (NIS) have a track record of.
It's also not enough to have ICBMs, they have already credibly tested those years ago, they want so many ICBMs that the US feels threatened by it (this is what deterrence means in practice), but not so many the US decides it has to do anything about it.
Edit: Just to clarify...I mean the distance between both is so short, a Nuclear War is absurd. There is no way to Nuke one country, without making your own country a radiation fallout zone.
> Every Pyongyang district, particularly where the North Korean leadership is possibly hidden, will be completely destroyed by ballistic missiles and high-explosive shells as soon as the North shows any signs of using a nuclear weapon.
For the DPRK the official strategy is not known as far as I know, but in 2022 they passed a new law explicitly authorising preventive nuclear strikes if "it is judged" that ROK is going to strike state leadership. See https://www.apln.network/analysis/commentaries/north-koreas-... which also links to a janky translation of the law.
It's a means of extorting food aid from, among others, South Korea without losing control over who ultimately receives it.
They're not self-sufficient in terms of agricultural output, but currently it's by design.
i'm not sure where this opinion comes from, i seriously doubt it myself
It's surprising how many systems there are (Russian, French, British, US, Chinese, Indian etc) and how rarely anyone dares to actually do a public test...
The stakes of getting this wrong are incredibly high. Perhaps all of these systems are simple posturing tools, incapable of providing real protection if called upon. They provide comfort to the population, and doubt in their enemies.
I think it's just as likely that these systems work to some degree, but demonstrating them would provide the enemy with quantifiable data that can use to help circumvent the protection.
If North Korea were to attack the US in the most cost-effective way – crossing the Pacific east – there's GMD interceptors in Alaska that could try to hit them in space, several thousand km's above the ocean. It's unclear how well those work. The *public* version of the story is that they have about a 60% success rate, against simple targets without countermeasures; and that they intend to fire four interceptors against each incoming warhead to boost this probability [1].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_Orbital_Bombardment...
[1] https://www.economist.com/united-states/2018/01/11/there-is-...