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No

maybe/depends

only if it's <insert country/organization here>

[Svarte Troner]

Actually, one of the best course of action would be to help smuggle satellite phone, radios and soap opera from South Korea. We now have the technology to open them up to the outside world, and it'll be only a matter of time until the decide they want to be part of it.

New plan :

Operation North K. Pop

They already have that I think, it's just glorifying the deard leader.

[kaijyuu]

Hrm, if we're going to use western culture to infiltrate NK, and the leader guy likes Disney, then it makes sense that we should be using our cute and innocent animation....


*maniacal laughter*


Fire the friendship cannon!

[Megaman]

...

No

[kaijyuu]

You're just afraid it'd work.

[Loud Whispers]

I just caught on as to what you were suggesting, and quite frankly the idea of an over zealous nation that would be re-emerging from the recovery of civil war and personality worship... To begin worshiping a new set of idols... Seems disconcerting to say the least.

[kaijyuu]

Baby steps. Going from one cult to another, lesser one is an improvement, and an easier way than going cult-cold-turkey.

[Loud Whispers]

Why not just introduce them to Dwarf Fortress no

[Urist Imiknorris]

That would just make cultists of Armok/Toady.

[Grek]

Short answer: No.
Longer answer: No. Are you out of your mind?
Actual answer:

There is no country on earth that wants to invade North Korea.

A] B] Seoul is basically screwed if there's a war. North Korea keeps enough guns pointed at it to level the place within a week, and if there's a war, they are going to bomb the city (possibly with anthrax) and then nuke the rubble before getting destroyed by South Korea's superior army. The loss of life would be far too high, even for die-hard Korean Unificationists.

B] Nobody other than South Korea is willing to invade North Korea on the South's behalf when North Korea has nuclear weapons and they don't. It's just not an acceptable tradeoff, regardless of how much better your conventional armies are.

C] China will throw an absolute fit if the US or Russia invades, possibly sparking WW3 as per the Sino-North Korean Mutual Assistance Pact. So, unless and until China decides to drop North Korea, the US and Russia are out. India and Pakistan, the world's other two nuclear powers, are too busy glaring at eachother to attack either Korea.

D] China doesn't want to deal with the flood of poor, uneducated refugees from North Korea that is sure to happe as soon as North Koera's army turns it's attention to fighting an outside enemy instead of opressing their citizens. They also don't want to let any other superpower invade, even if they could be assured that there wouldn't be any refugees, because they don't want other powers on their doorstep.

[Karnewarrior]

Friendship cannon actually sounds like a good idea. Hit them where their muscle is; the undying loyalty to batshit insane dictators. If you put even a couple thoughts of doubt in the people at large's heads, NK would crumble apart.

We could even cover it up badly, say a balloon full of motivational flyers was on its way to china when suddenly and mysteriously it exploded in a controlled manner that released it onto NK soil.

Or hire a mercenary. I hear they're good at bringing down North Koreans.

[Mech#4]

Excluding any reasons that forces a country to take immediate action against North Korea, I'm guessing the situation will kind of resolve itself. From what I understand, government types that revolve around specific people only last as long as the line does, once that's gone either another single leader arises who's strong enough to unify everyone under him, or you have a bunch of seperate factions who try to claim legitimacy themselves, which weakens the unified powerbase and causes infighting.

Certainly a long term view, but if they're not harming anyone outside of their county well...

[GreatJustice]

I think everyone else has put it better than me already. If the US invaded North Korea it would win, but the industrialized sections of South Korea would be rubble from massed artillery fire (which, even when completely outdated, is still an effective armament in sufficient quantity), the loss of life would  be enormous on all sides, and depending on how angry the North Koreans were they might launch their nukes and ruin someone's day (Most likely Japan all things considered, since South Korea would blow the radiation into their neighbourhood every other day while they lack the long range missiles to reach the US presently).

Again, ignoring all this, how do you plan on paying for an invasion? The monetary costs would be positively enormous from running a conventional war against a country like North Korea, and you're already running a deficit. You aren't helping that problem by going around playing world policeman.

If I wanted to cause problems for North Korea, I'd simply stop sending them piles of cash and wheat in foreign aid. The common North Korean is starving anyway, and the bulk of that goes directly into encouraging army recruitment so its not like its a pointless gesture. Plus, that would save however many million dollars are spent on keeping their higher ups and army fed, so yay deficit reduction!

[Supercharazad]

Wait, AFAIK, North Korea has nuclear weapons. They're also one of the countries batshit enough to use them.

[Sheb]

Or we could send a small plane to paradrop Teddy Bears.

I mean reality is often stranger than fiction. A guy who posted one of the Teddy Bears's pictures online got arreted for "facilitating illegal migration", presumably for hosting an illegal alien teddy bear.

[Skyrunner]

No-one wants to invade DPRK. Not even South Korea. For starters, ROK's king is in the palms of NK—Seoul, where I happen to live, houses 1/4 of Korea's population, and is only a short car drive to the DMZ. Artillery works quite well against totally unfortified civilian buildings that were built without a thought for the northern menace. Also, if there's enough targets to shoot at you'll kill a lot just by trying.

Second, even if ROK gets NK in a totaly peaceful and agreed-to matter (let's say Kim signed over the country to ROK... somehow), the rehab of the two nations' citizens is going to cost a lot. DPRK has nothing to offer ROK right now. Consider that Germany was richest of the European nations when they reunited, and the wealth difference between the two sides was only a few times. They're struggling too, I think.
DPRK and ROK have a wealth difference of fifty times or more, and ROK really isn't that rich compared to other nations. The cultural difference is outstanding, too, different dialects, different vocabulary, different cadence; all will mark the DPRK citizens as to who they are and serve as an excellent target for discrimination. ROK is homogenous, like Japan, and doesn't tolerate 'different' people well. It's easier if you're totally a foreigner. Mixe bloods between, say, Vietnam and Koreans are harshly discriminated against. Now, think of DPRK citizens, who look the same, but are radically different in thinking and speaking, and are probably poor, and already have a bias of being loony cultists. They are undertrained, meaning they'll tend to be in the lower jobs, and the bad image will be confirmed.

Third, think of China. China likes having DPRK as its vassal, who woul leap if China say leap. DPRK is a nice buffer, and guards the land route along with serving as a good threat to maneuver in politics with.

Next, remember that DPRK is a nation backed into a corner. It's allies disappeared one by one, climaxing with the USSR collapsing and China embracing some aspects of capitalism. A rat surely will hurt the cat threatening it, and maybe kill the mouse that it knows is an inside man and within paw's reach. He has a nuke too, that can harm a good chunk of nations. The burgeoning economic power of ROK makes DPRK's propangda next to useless, so it doesn't have non-violent weapons left. The culture of ROK is infecting DPRK, smuggled and traded via the blackmarket.

Cutting off aid will worsen the humanitary conditions.

Yeah, I'm rather pessimistic about us being able to do anything decisive right now. Only time will show us a way ... >.>

/[end uncited rant]