I took the point of the blog to be that the current focus and posture of the DPRK military is to deter attacks on NK. I think that is reasonable. That does not mean that they cannot or will not deliver a devastating attack with conventional or nuclear fires on South Korea or Japan, but I would be very surprised if they would ever again attempt to conduct maneuver warfare and invade the South. To do so would expose the military to defeat, and with no military the Regime would likely collapse, and Regime survival is, in most circles, the #1 priority of DPRK.

I think DPRK, South Korea, Japan, Russia and the US all share one common goal: Maintaining the status quo with the DPRK is the preferred option and perceived as the best case for each of those states for their own unique reasons.

But there is a wild card: The populace of the DPRK.

Currently kept in the dark as to their relative situation this populace does not act out. I imagine there is pretty good fear of state response (thus the need to not lose the military in some southern adventure) that helps keep the populace in check as well.

But what happens when this populace inevitably enters the information age? The plans of all these governments to sustain the status quo will become moot. An informed DPRK populace will become a restless one. The DPRK will have to respond to that internal challenge. It will likely make Syria look like a cakewalk in terms of state violence directed at a populace. It will also ratchet up the likelihood of the aforementioned attacks on S. Korea or Japan as an attempt to rally the nationalist fervor of a drifting populace.

Today DPRK is literally a dark hole on a night view of the globe from space. We may all want to consider that in the near term at least, keeping the lights off is a good thing for the stability of NEA.