And what difference have North Korean sanctions made geopolitically? North and South Korea are nowhere near a peaceful resolution, and North Korea has advanced its nuclear arsenal significantly, with a repertoire that could even hit US coastal cities.

North Korean citizens have now normalized to poverty and destitution after generations of sanctions. There are quite a few of them working alongside the South Asian labour force in the Middle East, engaged in slavish labour that the Gulf nations are often criticized for.

SK has a stronger military than NK and twice the population. Of course a large part of that is internal economic failure due to central planning.

The stronger military doesn't matter when NK has nuclear weapons, which deter any "unification efforts". Sure, South Koreans are doing great, but what difference did sanctions make to the lives of North Koreans?

You seem to be looking for some other outcome. NK with the economy of SK would have been a nuclear threat decades ago and would be stockpiling more nuclear weapons than the US has given their relative GDP allocations..

Would it be nice if sanctions were equivalent to invasion and does that matter to the argument that they are better to implement than do nothing?

North Korea has no dearth of access to nuclear weapons. They get enough raw material from countries other than Canada and the tech they need from China, Pakistan and now Russia. So no, sanctions have not harmed their nuclear programme.

But what they've done is worsen the lot for the layman North Korean.

North Korea was already a nuclear threat decades ago. Where they were lagging behind was in ICBMs that could reach the continental United States.

North Korea's nuclear program has been slow and you give financial ability as a way out of it.. Decades ago is still decades late, then there is the dollar short aspect of their program.

I still have no idea what you think is an alternative that would have made a North Korea with South Korea's economy a great thing for arms control.

Keeping North Korea poor has all been waste of time unless our goal was to have 75 years of "wasted time" before a potentially uncontrollable escalation with China.