Fine. Should there be a war with North Korea and if America, South Korea, and Japan beat North Korea, I stipulate that North Korea is likely to wage an insurgency. And maybe China and Russia would support an insurgency.
So what?
The only reason to wage war on North Korea is to remove their nuclear weapons capabilities.
Good grief people, you couldn't pay America, Japan, or even South Korea to take over that black hole of despair.
If we decisively defeat North Korea and roll into the north, our armies should stay exactly long enough to wreck their military capacity (tanks, artillery, chemical weapons); destroy the prisons and camps; arrest and imprison whatever leaders are slow-witted enough to be captured; dig out their nuclear infrastructure; remove their nuclear scientists and technicians; and distribute cell phones, seeds, and farm hand tools.
And then we leave. Maybe we push South Korean territory north around Seoul to make a better buffer zone. But maybe we just bug out completely south of the existing DMZ to avoid legal problems with moving the ceasefire line without Russian or Chinese consent. I assume that would be a problem.
Let the Chinese and Russian enjoy supporting the regime remnants rebuild their gulag with a UN seat.
Park recon drones over the country and bomb anything that looks like WMD rebuilding. Or any overweight man with an attitude and a bad haircut, of course.
Hell, for real yucks, pass out AKs from North Korea's stocks to every North Korean as we leave. Surely not all will meekly fall in line with the regime elements now brought down to their level.
Remember, South Korea has this nice DMZ and associated border defenses to control the remnants of North Korean armed might and contain it in the north.
UPDATE: I'm wary of predicting North Koreans collapse because the regime seems to be able to control their people no matter how badly the regime does economically.
But the North Korean economy and regime authority do continue to get worse as China actually has started to squeeze North Korea, and there are visible signs of weakening state control. Do read it all.
Ideally, I'd like to contain even a nuclear North Korea and work for their collapse. I don't think they are actually insane.
Only the possibility of Iran purchasing nuclear technology or even working nuclear weapons from North Korea gives me reason to consider military action against North Korea.
