I appreciate your experience and insight. Differ on judgment.
I truly do not believe the North Korean leadership is irrational. They are a small country without access to the larger world markets, deliberately choked by the really big boys. In a way a bit like Cuba, where the population has been kept deliberately impoverished by the US.
I think North Korea has responded to a difficult situation the only rational way available to them. And I don't believe much of the demonizing done by the Western media. They are manipulated mercilessly. We only have to look at recent history to see how unreliable our "news" is.