More people would die if we did than if we don't. Seoul is one of the most densely populated cities in the world, and it's extremely close to the border.
Alas, from an historical standpoint, North Korea is a relatively small aberration as long as it remains isolated and weak. The thing that I don't understand is how such a repressive regime could possibly have developed nuclear weapons. It seems somehow unfair, not to mention dangerous for the rest of us, that advanced science can be done in such an environment. I've always assumed that anyone smart enough to do such work would be smart enough to refuse to do it. But I guess I am wrong.
One Answer: Through Nuclear proliferation. And of course they work hard. You can't build something like without working hard.
>>It seems somehow unfair, not to mention dangerous for the rest of us, that advanced science can be done in such an environment.
Who is 'us'?
Is it unfair to the rest of the world that technology to develop something like a F-16/drones etc lies in the hands of one country which fights/has fought many wars in the past and present, undoubtedly killing several hundreds of thousands innocent people.
>>I've always assumed that anyone smart enough to do such work would be smart enough to refuse to do it. But I guess I am wrong.
Like? What about employees at Lockheed Martin? Or say some other defense company.
You're drawing parallels between a defense contractor motivated mostly by profits and a nation that very literally holds a gun to the heads of its people in the name of progress. I don't believe that's fair.
The US for all its faults is nothing like North Korea.
Smart doesn't come into it. These guys - to the extent that they think about it at all, having been raised from birth to think that the Kim dynasty are living gods - are doing it so their families can eat. And so would most of us I'll wager.
The science isn't actually that hard (I'd feel comfortable I could design/build a gun-type fission weapon myself, given budget and resources, from open sources, with basic engineering education). The hard part is the smuggling, front companies, etc. to get the equipment and materials.
I'm pretty sure by the time NK was looking at going nuclear, the SU wasn't particularly happy with NK. NK was closer to China, and SU didn't really support Chinese proliferation (there were substantial divisions on the SU-China border, after all...)
China didn't really want NK to go nuclear, either.
Over what time scale? I'm not advocating military action--I don't know nearly enough to have an informed opinion--but it seems to me that military action could cost lives now, but save countless innocent North Koreans in the generations to come. One can think back to the Second World War and consider what the cost of inaction would have been there. Concentration camps should not exist and if all other avenues have been exhausted, at what point does one have to accept the risk of dying to end them?
I don't live in South Korea, nor do I have family there, so I understand that words like this are easy for me and I don't pretend otherwise. This isn't our decision to make in the West. But there's something about standing by and doing nothing that just seems unconscionable to me. Are sanctions really going to stop this? And now they have nuclear weapons too? Can this ever get better without getting worse first?
The NK regime has survived, to date: two major power transitions, the financial collapse of its protecting superpower state, the worst famine in modern history, a full-scale ground and air invasion by a world superpower, a widely-known and well-documented human rights record that would shame Nazi Germany, openly kidnapping foreign citizens to be trained as spies and other major diplomatic kerfuffles in the same league that have previously started wars, and I think the longest and most severe economic isolation in the history of the United Nations.
We're told breathlessly with each new development for the past 50 years that collapse is surely just around the corner. But I can think of very little that would seriously test the regime beyond what they have faced so far.
By "over what time scale?" I think Osmium meant "yes, more people would die in the short term, but would more people die in the long term?" It's a valid and important question. For how many decades should the rest of the world allow a regime to torture and kill innocent children before we decide that it's worth the (heavy) short-term losses to put a stop to it?
Their army is pretty strong, and can fight until they cause significant damage. And beyond all they have a huge cache all kinds biological, chemical weapons.
Also don't forget, China gets a buffer zone due to North Korea. Speaking from a Geo political stand point North Korea is very important to China.
All this means war is impossible in that area. The best way is to exert economic pressure and have the regime collapse. But I'm believing that isn't possible either, China won't let that happen mostly because they don't want a refugee problem.
Its a stalemate. Hardened more by Nuclear weapons.
I don't think the Nork Army is a significant factor, really. The Western (or First World, or whatever you prefer to call it) way of war has moved on a lot since the 1950s. Communications and logistics are the key. In the first minutes of any stand-up fight, any modern military[1] would have absolute air supremacy, and from then on no Nork forces can communicate or move - it doesn't matter how many millions of men they have. They stop being an army and become just a bunch of guys in the same clothes.
The problem is what do you do with them once you've "won"? It would be Irag or Afghanistan x100.
[1] As an example, the UK defends the Falklands with just 4 modern fighters (Typhoons). That's enough for total superiority over the entire Argentine air force.
What if Nazi Germany stopped short of trying to invade western Europe and Russia yet still had it's concentration camps? Would you have argued that it's not worth the cost of war to put an end to them?
I believe this is correct. I've read reports that China provides the North with about half (or more) of its food. I'd imagine a substantial portion of that goes to feed NK's military.
The only solution will very likely involve China, and I can't imagine that they'll go willingly. They may change their mind if NK lobs an atomic weapon at the South or at US interests (continental if they can reach; elsewhere if not), but I'm dubious even that might work.
Assuming the North's military leadership doesn't completely lose its few remaining marbles, they might believe that nuclear proliferation within (in the form of many functional, working weapons) gains them sufficient bargaining power that they can do whatever they want. In that circumstance, it's plausible that they might wind up stepping on China's toes. Although, I highly doubt this would happen either.
It's depressing because there's very little that we can do, and China is unlikely to help for reasons bfe cited. They've literally starved out the population that could potentially overthrow the regime from within, so save convincing some segment of their army to stage a coup, all we can do is wait.
It also doesn't hurt to spread stories like this one far and wide. The only problem is that the majority of people outside the Koreas (particularly those within the US) just don't care. It doesn't affect them, so why bother?