Looks like China is suffering a similar problem our CIA has.There are some things that the Chinese would rather spend their money on rather than a conflict with NK.
The world isn't stupid to North Korea's protectors/enablers. Even China has panic buttons that are being pushed. And if the world (countries with real value) decides, then Beijing won't have to devalue its currency artificially.
If the neighborhood decides to undo Kim Il Jong's fiasco, then the world might want to inventory its used/slightly damaged containers for humanitarian assistance in NK as substitute expeditionary housing.
I think it will be easier to bribe NK Generals further away from Pyongyang to control the sectors around Pyongyang making the capital a "forbidden city" rather than go toe to toe with Kim's personal guard.
China's strength is that it has personal history on how to retire a dynasty that isn't in step with the modern age. It may get bloody, but it'll be far smaller in scale than going toe to toe with a starving, desperate, and extremely xenophobic enemy armed with nuclear devices.
Kim is no dummy, and he'll smell the end a lot sooner than any of us will. I fully expect that Kim will purge his own ranks the way Stalin wiped out his leadership in 1937 in he isn't doing it already. In purging the old guard (similar to what Mao did with the Cultural Revolution), he'll have a highly radicalized and younger leadership corps albeit less experienced and less compromising with subordinate needs. If this happens, Kim's cult will bleed out much much quicker via mass starvation-implosion and devolving into a warlords territory. Essentially, North Korea will be a giant no-man's land that would frighten the toughest characters of Mad Max's Road Warrior films. If Kim doesn't purge, he's still doomed but with much less localized violence.
How could Kim lengthen his days? He could author his own "forbidden city" the way Pablo Escobar built his own prison, "La Catedral."
Kim will never have what Pablo had in means of engineering his escape or bribe the amount of people Pablo had in his pocket. Kim will feel much much safer in his forbidden city with his own personal guard and army of pretty girls while knowing that the rest of the world will want his head the moment he transits out of Korea. In fact, he may even thumb his nose at us and really upset those who think that he's gotten away with murder. He won't. He'd be left to God's Justice.
This might work given that the Korean is considered the "hermit kingdom". It might appeal to Kim if he had his supplies of drink, guns, girls, DVD/video collection, and even an on-line connection for whatever websites he surfs (on-line gaming?)
The angle he could work is giving the appearance of being magnanimous by retiring. And if this is the path he chooses, we just might consider that he is BEING MAGNANIMOUS for retiring without having us put his lights out for him...via a lot of killing.
Why would he say that he's retiring? He'd inform all Koreans that he's met his life's goals in making the Korean peninsula a nuclear power and a self-sustaining nation not requiring foreign intervention or overseers. In fact, that might work into the equation of his delaying retirement: "I can't/won't retire until foreign non-Koreans are off the Korean Peninsula...meaning all coalition forces be it Chinese, American, Russian, whomever."
Of course, if this were the case, the Koreans themselves would want Kim dead dead dead for all of the misery he brought them. Thus, a Coalition force is necessary to PROTECT his retirement from revenge.
But Kim can't hold the tide much longer. Sanctions will starve the miserable population. Generals and senior military/police officials will be bribed. Sectors will be lost to foreign humanitarian aid. Kim doesn't have a lot of time to make the deal first. He'd better draw the contract up and the city's defensive lines out. He'd better choose his guard and concubines now. He'd better have his Internet connection secure and a lifetime supply of high speed bandwidth for Internet movies and gaming. Because if he delays too long...
...will spend money on going to the Beijing Olympics, no one will experience appreciating property value for Olympic construction, no one will install high bandwidth Internet/media for Olympic programs, no one will do business for the nations guarding the little tyrant, and those footing the bill for this lost opportunity will see all of their future get turned over to India (vast/high density and well-educated population needing a lot of blue collar jobs...who's already packing nukes for self-preservation). If India goes internationally MFN over this, then China gets screwed...and China knows it.
The modern Chinese generation isn't a peasant army that only needs one set OD green utilities to function day in and day out.
The Cult of Mao is Dead
