Quote Originally Posted by anonamatic View Post
I wouldn't rule a collapse out at this point at all. I'm not sure the whole dynastic transition is going very smoothly. That especially after all the hard case military adventure on their part did not result in the sorts of external activities they could apply the usual twists to lie & attempt to claim victory from. Worse, they crapped on China using the same sort of face losing tactics employed by Russia during the Olympic games during the Asian games. They broke the armistice, everyone there knows they did, it probably carries more weight there and in China than it seems to as well. Since SK hardened up afterwards, it didn't work very well for them in that sense either.

They may try to provoke more serious violence to quell domestic discontent too. The problem with any look at NK is that it's a Disneyland of Crazy. It's impossible, and unreasonable to expect any rational behavior from them, even when everyone in the country is starving.
this last part in bold... All actors are rational and predictable so long as you are able to understand their frames of reference regarding reasonable and acceptable... now in this case getting that nut cracked is really really hard . I just think we too often ascribe crazy or irrational to behavior/decisions we don't understand... as if they are un-understandable as opposed to lacking the right decision framework to understand/predict...

I am officially off my soapbox