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Comment by samlinnfer | Hacker News Reader

North Korean has won, once they had nukes and ICBMs they became untouchable.

"won" is a very strong word for a country that sits economically somewhere between South Sudan and Congo, with a primary "enemy" that started out similarly and is now easily 20 times richer.

Self-sufficiency and exclusion from global trade can be very expensive for a nation long-term (a cautionary tale, since those ideals are a bit of a siren call nowadays to many Americans, after getting quite wealthy by doing the exact opposite).

The leadership doesn't particularly care, they get to live quite plush lives in their little hermit kingdom and only care about the general population in so far as they need to be comfortable enough they don't risk rebelling. Winning for the Kim family is remaining in power and they've secured their position against outside aggression quite successfully.

tbf, they already had artillery pointed at 10 million people, enough to commit an atrocity. The nukes were just the frosting on the cake.

Nuclear weapons and ICMBs that can deliver them to the US makes the threat more meaningful too. There was always the chance that a Trump-like president would decide a few days of shells raining down in Seoul while we hunted NK's artillery positions would be worth getting rid of NK. Road mobile ICBMs that can deliver a nuke to the US mainland removes that option unless they're REALLY REALLY strong believers in the 44 GBIs sitting in Alaska. (Ignoring their shoddy track record and the fact we only have 44 and usually shoot 2-4 at each missile)

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