[groggler]

You seem to be looking for some other outcome. NK with the economy of SK would have been a nuclear threat decades ago and would be stockpiling more nuclear weapons than the US has given their relative GDP allocations..

Would it be nice if sanctions were equivalent to invasion and does that matter to the argument that they are better to implement than do nothing?

[fakedang]

North Korea has no dearth of access to nuclear weapons. They get enough raw material from countries other than Canada and the tech they need from China, Pakistan and now Russia. So no, sanctions have not harmed their nuclear programme.

But what they've done is worsen the lot for the layman North Korean.

North Korea was already a nuclear threat decades ago. Where they were lagging behind was in ICBMs that could reach the continental United States.

[groggler]

North Korea's nuclear program has been slow and you give financial ability as a way out of it.. Decades ago is still decades late, then there is the dollar short aspect of their program.

I still have no idea what you think is an alternative that would have made a North Korea with South Korea's economy a great thing for arms control.

Keeping North Korea poor has all been waste of time unless our goal was to have 75 years of "wasted time" before a potentially uncontrollable escalation with China.