North Korea declares war on South Korea - full declaration

Even the DPRK has enough food reserves to last a few weeks, which is how long the war would last before they were destroyed from one side or the other.

> China was one support that helped North Korean Kim family rule NK for so long and strategically keep the nation cut-off from rest of the world, effectively pushing it into a modern stone-age.

That was all set by Mao and Stalin, who weren't exactly the most well meaning cookies in the jar. Recently the relationship between the PRC and DPRK has been less happy.

Whilst Western definitions of middle-class tend to involve our economy in some way, the best I could manage would be those living in the cities and towns. They get (not brilliantly reliable) electricity, access to healthcare, housing that varied from buildings genuinely I thought were abandoned up to blocks of flats that weren't in too horrific shape. In the cities there was some (overcrowded and often dark) public transport. Towns relied on bicycles and lots of walking.

The majority of people were those living in villages. I passed these over and over again on the roads (by which I mean, I could see them from the road - they were usually NOT on the road network themselves, presumably by design). Buildings were of brick or other such material. Vehicles extremely rare. Oxen extremely rare (and clearly prized as ploughing tools). Three-person ploughing teams depressing common (looked like a shovel and two ropes tied to the head - one person jams it into the field, everyone lifts it and turns the earth, everyone takes one step forwards and repeats, over and over and over again). I didn't see much evidence of electricity in these villages. They're effectively cut off; there's no way for Kim Citizen to decide to wander over to the next village. Rivers used for washing clothes. People walking a long, long way to the fields they were working. The number of people engaged in working the land was enormous. For someone from the West used to the idea that a very small percentage of the population need be engaged in actually growing the food, it's a shock to see people in the 21st century farming effectively by hand. The evidence of the famine and also massive deforestation is clear if you look. Every scrap of land that someone can can reach and might support crops is being farmed. There are vast, vast numbers of saplings with little white stone circles around them (presumably to mark it). In the last decade, they were clearly in a very bad way for solid fuel.

I agree that keeping the population in the dark is a very effective means of control. The locals I met were very keen to flick through what magazines etc I'd brought with me and wanted to know simple things about my life.

There was a famine before, and it didn't end the regime. There is a persistent myth that if a people gets hungry enough, they have a revolution, but it didn't happen in China and it didn't happen in the DPRK. I would be hesitant to think that simply cutting off the food would be so effective in quickly changing the DPRK foreign policy.

It wouldn't be what we are thinking. Generally, just having the country invaded is enough for us to be involved, actually.

> You are also misguided and misinformed about the relationship between the DPRK and China. While it is possible that North Korea will act without permission, they will not act without warning China beforehand.

I live in Beijing and pay attention. I don't think you are really informed very well; if the DPRK bothered to warn China, it would just give them some extra time to get some troops from Liaoning across the Yalu to stop their plans cold. Their first thought wouldn't be: let's save our tourists!

They're not rejecting responsibility. It's not as if they used to be fully in control and one day decided that they'd have a go instead at being prisoners of the state, utterly powerless, to see how that went. Nobody allowed them to reject responsibility.

Being allowed to reject such responsibility on the basis of a lack of freedom would make it too easy for the general public to blame a select few for crimes

Are you serious? You want to hold people responsible for something they didn't do and had absolutely no control over? If that's how it is, then YOU are also to be held responsible.

I agree that North Korea can outlay a large amount of artillery fire immediately, but I think South Korea + the US can wipe out 90% of it within the first week of combat. After that it becomes strictly a ground war for the north. I also believe a lot less people will die in the south than typically proclaimed, and South Korea can rebuild quickly - meanwhile, the North Korean regime will be finished forever.