Doing Something about North Korea

The situation in North Korea is almost apocalyptic. The country is run by a ruthless dictator (the son of a dictator) who thinks he is a god. He has been worshiped his whole live and demands utter loyalty.  He learned that if a country has a nuclear deterrent, that it is almost impossible for any other country to attack. No nuclear power has ever been directly at war with another nuclear power. Kim Jong-Un has relentless continued to develop nuclear capacity (while abusing and neglecting his people).  Looking into the future, there are many bleak possibilities.

1) North Korea perfects nuclear weapons, but never used them. Kim Jong-Un continues to abuse his people. This is pretty bad for the 25million people who live there, but won't impact the rest of the world. Likelihood: 60%.  Why would he use nukes unless he is threatened. 

2) North Korea perfects nuclear weapons and either used them or sell them to people who will use them.  This would be a disaster of epic proportions.  Likelihood: 10%.  With the possible exception of Pakistan, this hasn't been the case with out countries

3) North Korea in convinced to stop building nukes.  This could be either economic pressure, bribes, threats, but there is no (or minimal fighting).  Likelihood: 10%.  I just don't see Kim Jong-Un seeing any advantage in this. He doesn't care about money (he has enough).

4) Preemptive attack against North Korea. This would avoid the possibility to them selling nukes to anybody, or hitting the US with a nuke. However, a war could easily lead to 20,000,000 deaths and a nuclear weapon against Japan would devastate the world economy and one of our closest allies. There is also a chance China would depend North Korea, leading to the end of the world. If this is going to be the option, it should happen sooner than later.  Likelihood: 15%.

5) Kim Jong-Un  is overthrow and new leadership runs things differently.  Likelihood: 5%.

What other possibilities are there? What is the risk and what is the reward for each.  Is the risk of #2 so bad that we have go with #4.

Note: North Korea is planning to test a nuclear weapon this weekend. Trump is positioning to respond to this test with a show of force. 

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