[GhotiFish]

I have to say, I am scared. Very scared actually. I am scared of the grumblings around North Korea, the overwhelming and consistent negative media. This has sprung up recently (country scale timeline), over the past 1.5 ish years i'd say off hand, maybe?

I really am terrified that this is the western nation creating a causus belli. A reason for war. I'm really scared that in the coming years, the graph of human population is about to take an unexpected dip. Another nightmare in human history. Someone tell me that's not going to happen :(

[alinajaf]

Very well, you get your wish: A war with North Korea is bad times for pretty much everyone involved. Seoul bombed into the dust, thousands of refugees crossing the Chinese border and a potential for a proxy war between the U.S. and (China/Russia/Iran). Nobody wants this, especially not the North Korean regime. For all their bluster, they are still begging for food from pretty much anyone who will listen to them.

According to experts on the regime, recent threats directed at Seoul and Washington were moves to shore up support from the military faction that was waning after Kim Jong-un came to power and fired a bunch of senior military officials.

Instead of war, you get to watch a country deteriorate into the seventh circle. Humans bred for slavery in concentration camps, people below a certain height relocated to remote islands and left to die and mothers executed in front of their children for being 'enemies of the state'. Does that make you any less scared?

[dpapathanasiou]

It's unlikely, despite all the rhetoric: http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/seoulsvulnerability.html (while that article is 10 years old, all the same factors remain in play).

[ctdonath]

This has been the norm re:NK for a long time. Lots of bluster, bullying & bravado amounting to nothing.

Should there be war, Seoul would take some damage and NK would fold in about an hour.