North Korean policy?

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Let's face it. Militarily, N. Korea is pretty harmless. Aside the odd shelling or sinking of S. Korean boats (detestable in there own right, of course), the biggest loser of N. Korea's current state is N. Korea itself, or rather, its people/

If Kim regime is toppled from outside, the foreign power might have sufficient cunning pragmatism (shown only in casual form, not in substance by the US in the lead up to 2003 Iraq invasion, and not shown by the west at all in Libya in 2011) to offer Kim and family ahead of time an iron clad escape to a comfortable life of immunity from retribution for past crimes. This may seem unfair, but it is wisdom as it eases more important transitions, allows basic administrative machine to continue to function, and probably avoids humanitarian crisis during transition and possibly a bloody final stand.

The concern is if Kim regime is ever put in its death throes by an internal uprising, it might not have the option to escape and might chose to unlease its nuclear weapons as its final throw of dice rather than go quietly down to family extinction.

Certainly a logical suggestion given the alternative scenario.

My only contention is whether such a deal would be palatable. There would be a lot of people calling for Kim's head for decades afterwards. I doubt even china would be willing to give them safe harbour considering the almost certain backlash that would occur perhaps even in their own state. After all, satisfaction with the Chinese stance towards NK in china appears to be fragmented and even perhaps mostly negative.