The socialist paradise in North Korea is not in good shape:
In the north the secret police and intelligence agencies have been ordered to do more to prevent people from fleeing the country. ...
The people are hungry, the soldiers are hungry, the secret police are stealing whatever they can get their hands on and the senior officials are planning their escape routes. The highest caste people, who have long come to regard themselves (quite accurately) as a hereditary aristocracy, are growing more corrupt and fearful of revolution. ...
Morale is low in the military, largely because there is less food and fuel and cold weather is approaching. The northern government has been aware of these problems and discreet criticism of military leaders, and replacing a lot of these leaders has not worked. The public show of concern by leader Kim Jong Un is largely symbolic and intended to give a boost to the morale of the angry troops and their stressed (from pressure to fix or control the problems) superiors. What the troops really want, especially with the cold weather coming on, is more fuel (for heat), food and materials for repairing their decrepit barracks. Some of that may be forthcoming to give the troops hope. But when the hope runs out the government will have to deal with some very angry and unhappy troops. This is not a new threat and North Korea has always kept weapons and ammunition locked up when troops did not need it for training, and that is most of the time. Soon it will be nearly all the time, at least as far is letting the troops handle weapons and ammo at the same time.
Years ago, with money drying up, the kooks at the top decided they only had enough money to pay for nukes to keep out foreign invaders (which seems more likely to be China-initiated these days rather than fantasies of American invasion--we have a single combat brigade in South Korea); and for spooks to keep the people and newly impoverished military under control.
Now we're at the point where the kooks don't have nukes and their spooks are looting for themselves. Meanwhile the large army sees their rulers living well.
How well guarded are those weapons and ammunition, anyway?
UPDATE: Thanks to Pseudo-Polymath for the link.
