Or maybe do insane things like put really nice billion dollar ships offshore and blow them up once a month.
Somehow demonstrate the asymmetry to a larger portion of the population.
It reminds me of the advice to start arguing with others in your group if you're mugged, or to start singing, or anything similarly absurd.
But that was mostly a silly suggestion, the idea is to try to think of a way to make the idea that things are better elsewhere more available to the broader population. No idea if it is possible, but I think trying to do that might be more humane than ever harsher economic sanctions.
Either way if North Korea or to do something nuclear we've never answered the question of how we respond to that other than mutually assured distraction. However I don't think we can do that without causing serious problems to South Korea, China, and probably Japan. That policy was really designed for Russia, not something like NK.
We thought messing with Afghanistan and Iraq repaired, how in the world do you try and unwind something like North Korea?
The US has airbases in the area. Precision strikes won't take nearly as long as you think.
> Retaliating with massive force (the "Trump" option) is absolutely not an option. Like the previous response, it would be completely unacceptable to the rest of the world
I don't think this is true. See the US in the middle east.
> you would now be in a war with China who has to contend with a flood of refugees from a destroyed country.
China has stated that if NK launches the first strike, it will stay neutral, so no war with China. South Korea has planned for reunification for a very long time and has an enormous fund to help deal with it so though the flood of refugees is a serious problem, it's not unresolvable.
1. Is wrong because the decisions aren't made by the average North Korean, but by the leadership, which is living quite a comfortable life. At least more comfortable than death, or a war crimes tribunal.
3. The international community would absolutely tolerate proportional retaliation. For a nuclear attack (the only option North Korea would have against anything but Seoul), it is widely assumed that the US would retaliate with nuclear weapons. Even if some US president were to stop short of nuclear retaliation, there is no possibility of NK leadership surviving an attack.
The game theory mechanics aren't really that complicated. It's mostly the same as the cold war's Mutually Assured Destruction. Except the cold war scenarios always had the wrinkle of "if our enemy has already destroyed our country, and killed almost everybody–what is the purpose of retaliating against their population (which, by and large, would be just as innocent as ours)". NK doesn't have the ability to create destruction on such a level. Therefore, there would still be a United States (and many other countries) to protect. And such protection would be achieved by denying NK the ability to strike again, and by setting a precedent to discourage such actions by others.
If Seoul is their first attack, it's game over for NK. But if it's Japan or the US, they still have that ace up their sleeve unless we're prepared to destroy a LOT of NK VERY quickly.
Where does the staggering amount of money needed to fix the country come from? Or would we (the world) do something like set up a new government keeps living conditions the same and just slowly improve them overtime to prevent some kind of… shock? Just to keep costs under control?
I know people have some plans but if you could just beam all the administration off the planet tomorrow would anyone be prepared for the consequences of that?
While the situation in North Korea is certainly more dire, East Germany's economy was also largely incapable of competing and summarily shut down over the next few years, being replaced by new businesses to varying degrees of success.
NK is currently capable to feed itself under normal conditions, and to provide some basic necessities of life. Without a doubt, South Korea would have the means to provide what is missing to get to a basic, yet dignified, quality of life–especially with the certain help of the rest of the world.
I wouldn't worry too much about indoctrination. Look at Germany after WW2 and East Germany after reunification, or Russia after Glasnost, and you'll see that such top-down ideologies have limited staying power once they're no longer enforced. With the sudden availability of sandpaper and toilet paper distinct from each other, it'll be incredibly hard to continue believing in the old myths.
North Koreans probably lack the education to compete in the South's job market, but with an influx of cash, and an economy unshackled, the first years would see a boom in agriculture and construction–industries where North Koreans should be able to participate since they already exist. Some new techniques or materials appearing should increase productivity, but won't be impossible to learn for someone who has experience in those fields.
The structure of North Korea as a police state should actually work to its advantage in the first period, as well as the connections Koreans still feel for their relatives on the other side of the border. I'd be extremely surprised if there were any opposition to new leadership, or any violent or destructive trends.
The real problems will happen after a decade or two, when North Koreans have gotten used to a new standard of living, yet still lack the economic structures the make the South successful. Resentment might grow, in both directions. There'll be "stupid/lazy/obedient North Korean" jokes in the South, and impatience with the continued flow of money required to prop up the flagging economy. Meanwhile, the North will resent the arrogance of the South, start being envious of the success across the former border, and possibly start a long process of making sense of the rapid changes, their identity, and the historical injustice that randomly plunged them into darkness, while others, completely indistinguishable from them, got to enjoy their lives.
Those problems won't be insurmountable, as long as there's some leadership that doesn't budge from the necessity of the process.
By which I mean, I'd chip in to calm him down. I'll buy him a gently used Toyota, tomorrow, if it means he will settle down. I'm not even kidding. I'd even take him at his word. Hell, set up a PayPal account, and make it legal, and I'll send him money every month that he doesn't harass his neighbors. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one.
Hmm... We should crowdsource Un's Scotch fund. I'm only partially kidding.
I don't think they are harmless but I also don't think they are suicidal, this just happens to be the only leverage they are willing to use.
The minute they destroy a real city they are game ends and the rest of the world is going to actually do something. They LOSE negotiating power and are inviting in attack against them that will destroy the regeime.
Not only will giving in to demands allow NK to do it again, if they've actually done it once we have to assume they will have done it again or that some other state will because you can get away with it.
In other words: Choosing 3.e means saying "we will allow this to happen again at least once, if not from NK then someone else". Of all the impossible choices with NK, this is the impossiblest. It will cost more lives than the other options.
Is 3.c completely unacceptable to the world? I'm not so sure. "You would now be in a war with China"? No you wouldn't. China would also react to such a thing, and having a "buffer state" is not the same thing as having a sort of ally that is in a hot war of choice with super powers.
Or to put in other words: I Turkey blew up St Petersburg in order to extort Russia, do you think the US would be unconditional allies to Turkey?
After many decades of MAD theory it's on increasingly shaky grounds because we also know that a Russia-US war has environmental impact that just may kill all of humanity even if precision aimed at the enemy.
But this ain't MAD. Destroying a population centre is killing the hostage and asking for another one.
On the "nothing to lose": Of course they do. The leaders are omnipotent beings in their own absolute dictatorship. The proles are not in good shape, but they don't get to decide whom to attack. The deciders have literally everything to lose.
In the book "The Threatening Storm" the former CIA analyst essentially says "Saddam is under the impression that if you have nukes then you can do whatever you want. That ain't how it works, son. Saddam has no understanding of the last 50 years of deterrence theory".
Now, you don't have to agree with me or Pollack, but I think it's fair to say that his interpretation of the theory of deterrence is more likely to be predictive of US kinetic foreign policy actions.
Also the US is used to counting "megadeaths", but since this again isn't MAD, it's not American megadeaths.
I don't know which other option would be best, but I wouldn't visit Soul any time soon.
Edit: This reminds me of the Moscow theatre hostage situation, where they demanded Russian military leave Chechnya. They could have as well asked for the Moon to be plucked from the heavens. If Russia had already been on their way out from their own choice, they almost would have had to go back in just as a precedence-setter. If you let your national security and military options be dictated to you, then you are not a superpower.
1. NK's economy is in shambles. The regime has almost nothing to lose.
2. NK's regime does not care about human life (as evidenced by abuses against the people of NK). They would have no qualms about killing many many foreign civilians.
3. NK's populace/military would either not know about such an attack, would be convinced by state media that it was a justified attack on a military target, or would not be in a position to do anything about it.
4. Every country which NK has threatened (US, Japan, SK) is in all ways the opposite of the above: economically robust; government/military respecting of human life (of course there is room for debate there); populace respecting of human life and wary of war.
That means that any attack from NK against one of the above countries plays out as follows:
1. NK obliterates a population center. It has now demonstrated a capable threat.
2. NK makes demands (food, money, land, autonomy, whatever).
3. Victim country (say Japan) can either retaliate with precision strikes, retaliate in kind, retaliate with massive force, do nothing, or give in to demands.
3.a. Retaliating with precision strikes takes too long. NK launches another devastating attack. It is clearly not an option for the victim to lose another population center.
3.b. Retaliating in kind would be unacceptable to the government and populace of the victim country and the world at large. And if it were, it would not be worth the chance of a second attack from NK.
3.c. Retaliating with massive force (the "Trump" option) is absolutely not an option. Like the previous response, it would be completely unacceptable to the rest of the world, but most importantly, you would now be in a war with China who has to contend with a flood of refugees from a destroyed country.
3.d. Do nothing. Another city gets destroyed. NK is desperate, and there are lots of cities it can blow up until it gets its way.
3.e. Give in to demands. This is the only outcome that is all-around tenable. NK is happy, and further massive loss of human life is prevented.
NK is in an even better position if they can win their demands by merely demonstrating capability of destroying – or accidentally destroying – a city (e.g. by launching missiles over Japan), because they can repeat that trick more frequently than by actually destroying a city.