Originally Posted by
mikesaidyes
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Kim Jong Un is a rich man in a poor country. He's not going to give that up. He also knows if he did anything, he'd be blown away in a matter of seconds by his allies and the US in Korea and Japan.
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What are the chances the Nork elites would off KJU if they came to fear he would bring them to ruin? I think it is certainly possible. He doesn't rule alone. Is it unreasonable to think the Norks with influence and awareness of their some-animals-are-more-equal situation, namely the party bosses, the elites, the apparachiks who go abroad, and so forth, would also be afraid of losing a war with the west, just as they are fearful of the state security apparatus that helps keeps them toeing the line? That seems pretty reasonable to me, as an outsider. If there was a war, and they survived, how many of them would end up in secret CIA prisons here and there around the world? Even if they were not imprisoned, where can they go? If the state can't or won't protect them from less privileged Norks, which would be the case after the Nork government lost a war and collapsed, life in a secret prison might seem preferable to life in former North Korea. Those Nork party bosses would be treated worse than collaborators in Europe after the end of WWII.
Aside from that, shortly after 9/11, US military forces started a significant buildup in the Persian Gulf region, so the war in Iraq was unsurprising from a certain perspective. But to the best of my knowledge there has been no commensurate buildup to counter Nork aggressiveness, and not just that. No one in the region wants to deal with a collapsed North Korea and the millions of stateless refugees that would result.
No one wants a war.