The hermit regime continues to get away with long range missile launches, nuclear tests, and provocations against peaceful neighbors. If these bellicose actions were attempted by any other nation on the planet, they would be countered with swift military intervention by the US and its like-minded friends.
Yet the punishment for North Korea only seems to amount to harsh criticism and ineffective sanctions. Most seem to get that the criticism is never taken seriously in North Korea and that the sanctions don't work because you can't take away from a nation that already has next to nothing, but what many do not seem to comprehend, however, is why the next logical step in the progressive discipline of the regime; that of military action, will never occur.
To appreciate why, you would need to understand the relationship between North Korea and China. Yes, both communist and loose allies, but more importantly, the land mass of North Korea provides a huge buffer between South Korea and China. When North Korea invaded the South in 1950, China did not intervene until the U.N. began to overwhelm the North. The consensus among the Chinese was that military operations against North Korea would continue into Chinese territory to prevent the North from being resupplied. So, as long as there is communist vs democratic competing ideologies in our world, there will be a North Korea, existing solely to deter the use of South Korea as a staging area for a land invasion of China. The Chinese can no more tolerate a US controlled North Korea than the US could tolerate a Russian controlled Canada.
So it will not matter how many rockets the North Koreans launch, how many underground atomic bombs they detonate, how many millions of people they starve, or which overfed heir is installed to continue the legacy because the pugnacious regime will continue to walk around with a chip on its shoulder that we wouldn't dare knock off.
