While many like to play up Gen Mattis as a war-monger, he is an incredibly well-read individual. He is a strategist AND a warrior.
So, for a moment, imagine the NK Leader eating with his generals. One of them drops dead. A few moments later, another one drops dead. Rinse and repeat over a week. Then, Kim Jong-un wakes from a bad night's sleep to this...
This is almost no different from the military head games Reagan ran around the Soviets in the early 1980s. It was brutally effective, without a shot being fired.
"Sometimes we would send bombers over the North Pole and their radars would click on," recalls Gen. Jack Chain, [a] former Strategic Air Command commander. "Other times fighter-bombers would probe their Asian or European periphery." During peak times, the operation would include several maneuvers in a week. They would come at irregular intervals to make the effect all the more unsettling. Then, as quickly as the unannounced flights began, they would stop, only to begin again a few weeks later.
Another former US official with access to the PSYOP program offered this assessment:
"It really got to them," recalls Dr. William Schneider, [former] undersecretary of state for military assistance and technology, who saw classified "after-action reports" that indicated U.S. flight activity. "They didn't know what it all meant. A squadron would fly straight at Soviet airspace, and other radars would light up and units would go on alert. Then at the last minute the squadron would peel off and return home."
Then there is the issue of "what next" if KJU is toppled. Many people I know who grew up under Soviet rule knew they were being lied to - there was enough Western leakage where they knew what was up. When the Wall fell, they were GENERALLY ready to have a go at a life that is free (but still hard). I don't think that's the case with the poor citizens of NK. Thus we need a plan for winning the peace. THAT, in some ways, is a tougher bridge to cross than how to get the horse's head into KJU's bed.
Yea, if we go psyops, we will still get rhetoric from NK and his people remain under tyranny. However, there will be NO more missile tests (he can take a hint, and I suspect news of how that new guy in DC operates will reach China pretty fast) and NK is now neutralized.
To paraphrase John Lennon, all I am saying, is give Psyops a chance!!