Perhaps - like you say nobody wants anything NK has or make war with them. The whole thing doesn’t seem to make sense from Kim’s point of view unless its the Chinese who pull his strings. Looks like china using NK to gauge our military capabilities. I wonder how much freedom Kim actually has. Does he dare leave the country?
The problem is, Kimmy and Co. can’t run the type of system they have and be successful, unless maybe they had an oil / gas field to dwarf most any others. And, even now, what with fracking and other new tech, exploiting big reserves only drives prices down. Think “Venezuela x 10” in terms of likely results. Other commodities are generally even harder to make enough money on, again given the Nork “system”.
So, the Norks’ leadership hit upon blackmail to generate enough money for those in power to get by, and it has worked out pretty well for many years. The Chinese can play this to their advantage(s) as well, but whether they truly “control” Kimmy 100% is very questionable.
North Korea’s behavior (up to a point) makes a LOT of sense if:
1) Kimmy wants to stay in power.
2) Kimmy doesn’t give a **** about his people, but can use their misery as “leverage”.
3) Kimmy can maintain his cult-like leader status. People think that if we just shower NK with food, the people would turn on him. Not so; He has near total control and will (and has) just call it tribute and evidence of his wonderful and powerful leadership. Think Jim Jones - that is the kind of hold, maybe more so, Kimmy has on most of his people.
4) China plays it as they generally have.
What’s happening now is that for a while, the North ran into a “tougher” S. Korean approach, followed by the election of President Trump. So, Kimmy ramped it up: The new / current S. Korean leadership might be willing to play the fool again, but Trump (at least in this case) refuses to be blackmailed, seeing where that will end. This puts Kim into the position of trying to raise the stakes even faster.
As for those who think S. Korea and Japan should take the lead here, in taking care of NK, I would point out that in the short run, they do not have capacity, nor can they (unless they go nuclear), to quash NK without extremely serious damage to S. Korea. S. Korea actually has been spending quite a bit on defense — granted it should have been more. But, what’s available is what’s available. And God forbid the Norks land a couple WMD’s in Seoul, Tokyo, etc. Stretch it out, yes, South Korea & Japan could build up further, but then NK then has a more deadly nuclear capacity. They might hit us just for the heck of it, and, again, God forbid 20 or more nukes distributed among (hitting) S. Korea and Japan.
Some suggest allowing or even encouraging S. Korea and Japan to have nukes. That is insane. Do so many people have no ability to think a little way into the future???
So, what is left, really, is the heaviest strike we and S. Korea can muster, to neuter and hopefully decapitate as much Nork capability as possible. Then put everything we, the South Koreans, and Japan have, into defending Seoul and pounding remaining Nork forces. There could literally be 1000 Allied aircraft in the air around the DMZ, at the outset. The Norks may be hard to put down. I suggest everyone not very familiar with the Korean War go read up on how much ordinance we hit the North with. It is mind boggling.
This may also mean we have to “trip” Kimmy into doing something so the Chinese have an excuse to stay out of it. This may be the purpose of some of Trump’s tweets. I wish the Chinese could be persuaded to take preemptive action, but for reasons others have argued well here and elsewhere, I think the odds of that are low. Maybe 10%?
In some ways, this is like being on an island with a Cat 5 hurricane coming, no way off, and poor shelter. The options are bad, and worse. IMO.