[Darvince]

I think, that with North Korea so isolated from the world food system, that their stability rests much more on the ability of the population to feed themselves than for almost any other nation. Their wealth isn't rock bottom, yet you hear about them having famines occasionally, like the big one in the 90s from them no longer having the great surpluses of food of the USSR (a feature of that area of the world, not a feature of the Soviet government), or crop failures last year. So, they may someday have a period of instability brought on by insufficient food that isn't rectified by the rest of the world's industrial surpluses, leading to rebellions much like those in much of history around the world. Considering when the regime arose, however, it may not be for a long while yet, unfortunately. Of course, the deaths from starvation are all terrible, but the end of their isolation and becoming part of the much more stable and prosperous wider world would vastly outweigh the harm done by the famine.