North Korea is no doubt a terrible place with a siege economy but these 'pieced together by South Korean intelligence' stories - emaciated soldiers etc - are embarrassingly Judith Milleresque.
North Korea would have to act first and they will never do that unless they are cornered.
Given their escalating fondness of low-level provocations, the option of a surgical strike against the leadership gains appeal over time (but doesn't outweigh the downsides of having to deal with a broken nation afterwards yet).
How do you know this? The CIA world factbook puts N Korea's army at 6 million people. Seems like they have the ability to weather a sustained conflict just fine:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...
There was a picture floating around on the internet. It was an old photo from a meeting between the US and both Koreas. There were three Soldiers in the photograph. There was a typical American Infantryman, over 6' and looking like a badass. Then there was a South Korean soldier almost as tall that looked like he could probably kill a dozen people with his bare hands. Then, there was a young boy, looking about 8 years old and maybe 4' tall, in a military uniform. It was an adult in the North Korean military. Now, when countries get together like this, they send Soldiers who they feel will best represent them, so you have to consider the fact that this on-the-verge-of-death little kid was one of the best that the North Koreans had.
North Korean soldiers on the DMZ, which is the most important place, get about 800 calories a day. Before they joined the military, they got much less. North Koreans frequently have stunted growth and all sorts of development issues because their shit-bag leader spends all of their money developing weapons that even the most hard-up revolutionaries wouldn't be caught dead with.
I was under the impression that the attraction of nuclear weapons is that they can help reduce total defence spending. They act as a strong deterrent to any country considering an invasion thus allowing NK to reduce the size of its standing army as well as spending on traditional weaponry and military hardware.
>I was under the impression that the attraction of nuclear weapons is that they can help reduce total defence spending. They act as a strong deterrent to any country considering an invasion thus allowing NK to reduce the size of its standing army as well as spending on traditional weaponry and military hardware.
The North Korean leadership isn't capable of decisions like this based on mature, rational thought. More likely, they spend the money on nukes because we told them they can't have any, and no one tells the Kims no.
As an example of their immature behavior, there was a guy in charge of their agricultural department who built a series of farms that produced record harvests when Kim Jong Il was still around. Kim then demanded that they cut down large swaths of forests in the surrounding area and turn everything into farms, to replicate the successes. The next time they had a Tsunami, the deforestation caused all of the farms to flood and be destroyed. An estimated 2 million people died of starvation as a result.
The Kims are just spoiled children that play with lives instead of toys.
Good luck with that endeavour.