Certainly there are fair reasons for hiding capabilities, and they seem quite adept at determining what is going into the sea or not, but in a war of words environment if it was a certainty as THAAD propenents seem to claim a single shootdown would be a huge PR blow for nk.

It's just not reliable enough to risk and as such is still a last resort measure.

Defending against a nuclear ICBM is not possible to do reliably. It's a sad reality.

That is a good point. But you also probably don't want to tell people you have microwave tech so that they develop counter measures.

or until they run out of money

Money for what ?

As long as they don't rely on foreign supply for their missiles[1], they can manufacture them forever without having to pay anything to anybody.

[1]: it may sound like a bold hypothesis, but I doubt anyone would ship missile materials to North Korea. China could, of course, but that would be a bit risky diplomatically.

> it may sound like a bold hypothesis, but I doubt anyone would ship missile materials to North Korea.

Historically, Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan cooperated on nuclear and missile tech, though I think that was engineering rather than parts.

The place is an autocracy. The only way they will run out, is if nobody, and i mean absolutely nobody, wants to trade with them, officially or under the table.

And with NK slaves showing up in Polish shipyards, that is highly unlikely.

They have been at this for fifty years, don't hold your breath.

why would they need money? Why would they need to trade with anyone? It is not like North Korea is infinitely small and the earth infinitely big. The earth is a small globe, and NK is a region of that globe, one which almost certainly can be an autarky.