America is a tyrant nation where the common working man that use to be considered middle class is now reduced to near bum status( Homless). It takes 3 minimum wadge jobs to do what 1 minimum wage job did 30 years ago.North Korea is not the belligerent nation here. WE ARE. They've been defending themselves from American aggression since the Korean War started over 50 years ago.
Viewed in this context, their weapons program makes perfect sense.
Am I defending them? No. North Korea is a serial human rights abuser with a certified nutjob running the show. That said, they think the US is out to get them and FWIW they haven't been wrong about that since the 1940s.
They're building a weapons program for self defense. Considering how many other nations America has invaded, sanctioned, toppled and subverted over the past few decades, they have every right to be very afraid.
So exactly who is the real bogeyman here? Yes they are shitty to their people, but we've killed a million Iraqi civilians during our wars there. Since when did it become our job and duty to preemptively stop other tyrants?
Since the military industrial complex figured out how to get rich from it, that's when.