So send in the earth moving equipment and take what we want? Who gets paid for the mining rights? Well, if we use the failed USSR as any indication, it will be some educated well-connected high-ranking minister of whatever in the Kim regime, not the aforementioned villager subsisting on beetle larvae and methamphetamine. Point is that NK is so dysfunctional now, that simply going in there amounts to raping a person in a coma. They have no defenses. It’s not like they are a country of college educated norwegians marooned there six months ago.
Did that keep us from taking two continents (three if you count Australia) from indigenous tribesmen? No, and it won’t stop us this time with those kinds of stakes involved. At least they’ll get better food, shelter and education than they’ve been receiving.