I added this to my reading list this morning. It's 61 pages of RAND - which tends to be a little dry - but the basic argument seems to be that we could fold North Korea down so long as we took care of the nomenklatura and made sure they had: 1) safety from reprisal by the proletariat 2) secure socioeconomic position in any new regime 3) improvement of the lot of their nation Basically, if we can make it better for the country without fucking over the intelligentsia we could probably get away with it. They use the reunification of Germany as their exemplar and the collapse of Baathist Iraq as their reason not to try otherwise. I think North Korea is pursuing a nuclear weapons and missile program because it's the quickest way they have to the Big Boy Club. They're basically looking for the pain point where we're willing to give 'em amnesty for six decades of fuckery.