geopolitically it was valuable to have the korean war to get western footholds in europe in order to counterbalance the inevitable dynamos that would come out of asia. that's my guess anyway. the western leadership has a view of a united world with no single dominant race or people or area. so they thought it was necessary. this was a noble goal.

whatever nk is now it's troublesome to south korea and china because they can't seem to break out of their broken hero system. and this is a political lever. it's being exploited by the west. it's not in china's interests to let nk continue like it's going now. i think they recognize the human tragedy happening there and feel that if they were to intervene that there'd be repercussions in south korea about chinese expansion. so they can't do anything without south korea's say, and that's under US protection so...the lever can stay like that for the west.

whatever nk initially was it isn't now. it's worse now because of generations of a poorly designed (although likely very well intended) hero system. those designs break a certain way and they evolve a certain way. nk fits the bill. i'm just gauging this on external smells.

there's another completely diff hypothesis i'm floating around that also explains nk but it is so ridiculous, cockamamie and well-intended i won't go there. at this point in the world i figure it's better to not try to act as judges against past actors because we just don't know the context. we should focus on the future. it's a great theory though and one day when people are more chill i could share it and nobody would be harmed by doing that. that's if it's true. i have no idea.