General Mark Milley is incorrect in that they misjudge N. Korea’s main objective in obtaining viable nuclear weapons. In the past, N. Korea would make a scene and start hurling threats over international media as a way to get people to pay attention to them and reconsider their positions on giving aid to the starving, poor country.

Eventually, that tactic wore off, as more and more countries, and even China, started to reduce aid or cut them off completely, as they were a relatively powerless, insignificant country, militarily or otherwise. Obtaining nuclear weapons is simply a way for N. Korea to gain more diplomatic leverage in order for their demands to be taken more seriously. As I said before, you are mistaking nuclear weapons as a tactical weapon, rather than the strategic weapons they actually are. And it appears our general has made the same mistake. N. Korea isn’t out to obtain nukes to destroy the American menace once and for all, they need nukes to gain diplomatic relevancy.

The threat of nuclear weapons actually used in this modern age are all but over. MAD is still an effective barrier against nuclear war, and you can be guaranteed that China will put a swift and decisive end to the regime and their nuclear arsenal should they ever make any overt acts regarding deploying real nukes. Should war ever start in the pacific, China’s export economy will collapse, plunging China into social unrest that they’ve spent decades on preventing.

China’s communist authority only still exists because of a growing, stable middle class, they won’t risk anything disrupting the status quo they’ve built.

So a combination of MAD and Chinese oversight have eliminated any fears I’ve had about N. Korea.