May 19, 2006: North Korea appears to have decided to allow its conventional forces to deteriorate. The amount of money required to rebuild the aging weapons and equipment is far more than the north can expect to extort from its neighbors or the United States. What resources that are available are going into the secret police, ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons. The North Korea leadership is intent on keeping their tyranny going, because the alternative is death at the hands of an angry population, or war crimes trails for a long list of atrocities. South Korea believes that the North Korean government will eventually undergo a "soft collapse" that the south can manage. The U.S. fears that North Korea will, in the meantime, sell missile and nuclear weapons technology to hostile nations and terrorists. South Korea doesn't care about that, and is more concerned about an uncontrolled collapse in the north.