>>NK is working with Iran and Syria and probably Russia.
I agree completely. I think that Iran is spearheading it, Syria was complicit but now is a basketcase due to civil war, and Russia simply profits by selling them stuff.
I think that NK’s tests are so small (a low-tech plutonium nuke would be much larger) that they are simulating explosions with the free fertilizer they got from SK. They are blustering so that they can get their free stuff again. They receive some aid from China but not enough. If Kim Jong Un can’t appease his army, they will depose him. That’s the true game right now.
I have a feeling that Kim Jong Un will be dead within a year if the sanctions are not dropped. He’s too young to be respected and once the system breaks down China will move in.
I don’t share your optimism that China will move in if Jong-Un falls. I think his rhetoric is uniting what little he has in that country and focusing them on a cause.
I have family in SK. The word coming out in country is that he has them and most people seem to expect war. There’s a major exercise right now but its apparently larger then anything my family has ever seen. They think its prepping for the shooting to start.
If Kim Jong Un sees that he is losing he will start a war, he may start one anyway just because he feels sporty.