Not just north Korea, the whole world can see what happened to Ukrain after they gave up their nukes in exchange for a protection deal, mutually assured destruction is the only way to keep your country safe

The Security Dilemma: Any steps a state takes to protect itself also threatens their neighbours who can't tell if those actions are purely defensive or if they might be used for an offensive war.

In the Realism interpretation, this necessarily produces an arms race: The neighbours also need to increase their own safety, in turn threatening the first state, who then needs to...

WMDs and nuclear deterrence are the escalation of that dilemma. By raising the potential cost of an attack war to the level of annihilation, this leverages the most fundamental state objective (securing its own survival) to deter from ever attacking (at least one paper; war and diplomacy never turn out quite as the theory might imagine).

Idealism would instead trust in mutual understanding between states, that this arms race will produce pointless cost for all parties, which might be better invested in infrastructure and trade to make all parties more prosperous. Which also sounds nice on paper, but greed, ego and military industrial ~~corruption~~ "lobby" are working hard to separate us.

Remember, you've got more in common with a working-class American, Russian, Ukrainian, Chinese, North Korean, Israeli, Palestinian, Iranian or any other other country than you do with billionaires or the leaders working so hard to spread hate and division and turn us on each other. We do what we must to protect ourselves, but we must not forget that the guy on the other side is just as much a victim.

Until we can make that unity a reality, it unfortunately does seem that nukes are a critical component in any state's security strategy.

reinforce North Korea's view

I think you mean conclusively prove North Korea's view to be correct

That's because nukes ARE the only path to security lmao. As soon as the first one was tested, and then fuck me used against civilians everyone watching jnmed understood this.

It sucks, and I would much prefer a world without nuclear weapons, but this is reality unfortunately. If you have nukes, you have leverage without ever having to use them

We live in times, when if you don't have a weapon of mass destruction, you cannot be safe. This is like having a gun in neighborhood.

That's the overwhelming message of the 20th and 21st centuries. If you don't have nukes then the US or Russia is gonna mess with you. Get nukes.

Shit, Trump's illegal Iran war convinces me pretty strongly that a nuclear weapons program is the only way to keep my fucking apartment secure from the despotic motherfucker. Kick in my door and millions go boom, bitch!

…that sounds ridiculous, and it is! But that's the kind of world this sadistic, brain-rotted buffoon is trying to create. And for some reason Republicans seem to think that's just great! Less than two dozen of them could end this nightmare if they cared. But they don't. How many more are going to die for these bastards?

Checks and balances.

I know that it's an unpopular opinion, but I firmly believe that we were at least marginally safer when the USSR was still a superpower acting as a check on American fuckery.

Once the USSR fell, US went masks off on the international stage because they had no reason to pretend to be the good guys anymore.

They convinced all their allies to disarm themselves, and then went full "nice country here...shame if something happened to it" the moment they were the only big dog left.

The world can't re-arm itself fast enough as far as I'm concerned.

And not just North Korea's.

Just like Putin is the best NATO marketer, Trump is the best nuclear weapon marketer.

If they have a brain they will never relinquish their nukes. Not just because of the US either.

And unfortunately, North Korea is very correct in this assessment :(

Sadly, that's a lesson I've already learned from war in Ukraine. Before it I had "hope"s and "might"s about civilization. Now I have a substantial amount less

Well the UN definetly isnt guaranteeing it. Who can blame the north Koreans and others for having nukes as deterrence?