Mostly agree with you, but I think it is worth considering that tourist are still, as far as I know, limited to fairly controlled visits. In that sense, I kinda see it as a two sides of the coin thing, where western media exaggerates how bad it is, while tourists might not get a full picture. And I say that while truly despising how much of a centrist fence-sitter it makes me sound like lol.
You’re not wrong, but they have been through some pretty severe isolation and famine, and even the cooperation with China and Russia have been somewhat limited as far as I can tell, especially since the fall of the USSR.
I know next to nothing about warships, but as long as the buildings aren’t architectural nightmares waiting to collapse, that’s at the very least a roof over some heads that might not have had them before, although I agree that food definitely seems like a bigger issue for them. I think it’s also worth noting that the hotel is a project that was started just under 40 years ago, right before their incredibly devastating famine in the 90s, and by now it might very well be far easier to build fully functional new apartments than to try to fix an aging mega-hotel. If they DO get a solid infrastructure down in their major cities, things like industrial indoor farms might also help lessen their food worries.
I also think, reliable or no, any nuke is deterrent enough for most to not engage, since even one ICBM heading your way is enough to trigger MAD, even if that particular one is a dud.
In pretty much all of these cases it’s a wait and see situation to my eyes. But if the North Korean force projection strategy is indeed a way to ward off foreign interference until they feel safe enough to fully focus on improving material conditions domestically, I honestly wouldn’t be too surprised if average life quality in NK would surpass that of say a poor european country within 50 or so years, maybe even 10 or 20.
Say what you will about the NK government, but it’s genuinely impressive how - despite pretty much all the odds being against them - they managed to develop nukes and ICBMs, effectively safeguarding them against all foreign military intervention, and are now able to reorganize production into, yes, other military spending, but also seemingly finally increasing the quality of life for their citizens.
Like, sure, MAYBE all those new housing units in Pyongyang are empty shells to make the city look better to foreign eyes. But even if that were true, that’s still a foundation to build upon, and thanks to them having nukes and delivery systems, no one will risk nuclear war to fuck with them.
I’m fairly sure it’s the interpretation Dante runs with in Inferno. I have no clue if it was the popular belief at the time, but it does show the idea has been around for at least 700 years or so.