[Conservative_Nationalist]

I don't know what's wrong with North Korea. I really don't think we would ever invade them if they just gave up the Nuclear weapons and stopped threatening people. If they think this is the way to avoid a war then they must be kidding themselves. I think they are making a huge mistake by provoking us. Maybe they have finally figured out there policy is going to have the opposite effect to what they want. This is just the beginning but it could be a very big development.

[Steel Wolf]

Kim Jong Il considers nuclear weapons essential to the survival of his regime. He will not give them up under any circumstances.

By his calculation, we will not attack another nuclear armed state. He also sees rich, nuclear free neighbors who may be inclined to pay him off rather than risk his state failing. The implicit threat of the 'madman with nukes' routine is that if he's going down, everyone's going down with him. Much of Kim's carefully cultivated image of being insane is to scare the neighbors into giving him what he wants, but if his regime falls, he will not go quietly.

He is sane, but badly warped. He views his state as his by natural right, and his citizens as slaves to his will. His concern for them only extends to their capability to serve his interests. Whether or not they starve by the millions, or burn in nuclear fire, is simply not his concern. He cares only about maintaining power and obedience. His entire nation is a gulag, a nightmare realm of misery, starvation, and cult like leader worship.

Kim Jong Il has powerful enemies abroad, and a society he dare not try and reform. This type of person will never, ever be motivated to disarm. He must either have nuclear weapons, or lose his grip on power.

[daviddennis]

Kim has a big ego.

His feelings of self-importance are supported by nukes, and the fact that people have to pay attention to him and his regime because of them.

Getting rid of them would feel like castration for him; he would no longer be important, and no longer be able to extort money.

The west would probably contribute big bucks to him if he renounced his nukes, but then he couldn't salve his ego. That's more important to him than anything else.

Unlike Steel Wolf, I think his regime could survive without nukes, because he doesn't have to tell "his" people that he doesn't have them anymore. A quiet surrender, not covered anywhere within the country, would work just fine.

But he would feel like a broken shell of his former self, and I can't help but think that's pretty important to him.

D