"The country underwent a devastating war, and was subjected to decades of economic and political marginalisation, with the constant threat of another war hangin

"The country underwent a devastating war, and was subjected to decades of economic and political marginalisation, with the constant threat of another war hanging over it." If by 'decades of economic and political marginalisation' you mean it was on the Soviet side in the Cold War, then you are correct. But during that time DPRK had a strong alliance with the Soviet Union which provided them with enormous resources. Their economy was almost on par with the South. It wasn't until the collapse of the Soviet Union, in the 90s, that this changed and it was Korean belligerence in the 90s and 2000s that lead to the current state of affairs. "The country underwent a devastating war" Using the Korean war as justification for current North Korean foreign and domestic policies is as morally bankrupt as using the First World War as justification for Hitler's foreign and domestic policies. The DPRK has been the aggressor from the beginning. "The NNPT is a voluntary agreement - one that its key signatories are arguably in violation of." They signed other agreements... https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/KR%20KP_920120_JointDeclarationDenuclearizationKoreanPeninsula.pdf https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/KR%2... "The United States also should not be making demands of the DPRK at gunpoint." That strongly depends on the kind of demand being made. If the United States was demanding economic concessions, you'd be right, but that's the situation. The situation is that North Korea is making demands at gunpoint and is attempting to make even more devastating threats. In these negotiations, the United States has never threatened to attack North Korea's civilian population, nor has it threatened to use nuclear weapons. North Korea however, has done exactly the opposite. There is no parity between North Korea's and the United States' actions here.