@BillW,
As I said "... who rescues NK from
continuing agricultural disaster and threatening starvation? What happens to the value of Kim's pile of dollars? How does he continue his nuclear program without hard currency in an unstable world with a shrinking industrial output?"
Agriculture requires a lot of chemicals and as you pointed out, NK has no serious industry to produce it.
As a boomer in the Navy, one thing I know is keeping a nuclear stockpile is it takes more than just making weapons and stacking them. They have to be closely maintained and a lot of expensive, sophisticated parts, tools and knowledge is required to do this maintenance.
If the world economy shrinks, NKs may shrink less but then is was borderline before.
