We all know they're a bit cuckoo in NK, but the point's well made that these days, the school bully prefers to kick sand in the faces of those who it judge will be unable to kick it back.
Now, I know, quite a lot of countries have turned out to be jolly good at resisting the advances of the cousins- but if one has nukes, maybe the cousins will call on someone else instead?
It's perfectly rational thinking, and such a mindset has definitely been encouraged by recent history.
Let us not forget that General MacArthur had dozens of Atom bombs actually pre-positioned to Korea and would likely have been reaching for the matches and the blue touch-paper to melt large areas of North Korea, had he not been sacked.
I'm no apologist for Kim, but you can kinda see where he's coming from, can't
ya?
It's what the shrinks call 'learned behaviour'.