NK probably won’t attack… the risk is misinterpreting a missile test or other North Korean actions and then starting a full blown war by accident because everyone’s on edge.

This – very possibly starting with a ship being challenged in disputed waters

Is the NK army likely to be more determined?

See Japan in WWII. They’ve probably been told all sorts of horror stories about the Americans, which will probably turn out not to be true when they finally get into contact with them. Hopefully anyway.

I was surprised to read that Kim Whoever wasn’t next in line to the throne. Obviously a few disgruntled family members who can be wooed by the Chinese.

Everyone thought the Iraqi army would put up a decent fight, very few did. Brain-washing might be a bit more advanced in NK but I reckon they’d have mass desertions in a conventional war, the only reason there’s not more desertion already is that it’s hard to cross the DMZ and the family you leave behind gets sent to a labour camp.
I agree with the consensus this is all just sabre-rattling to shore-up KJu’s position, as whacky as NK appear to be I can’t believe they think they could benefit longterm from a war.
If they did want a war though they’d start conventionally and shell the bejesus out of Seoul and possibly even try and capture it (via the secret tunnels they have under the DMZ). Risky strategy but if they pulled it off they’d have a massive bargaining chip, especially with the threat of tactical NBC weapons (a missile shield would be virtually useless against those, especially artillery-launched ones).
If they did take Seoul then the US would likely have to rely on China to sort it out and put NK back in their place. I’m guessing they have pretty decent defences in place now though to blunt a conventional attack towards Seoul…

As long as north Korea’s missiles can’t reach the Uk, i don’t really care.

just been watching the Panorama program, don’t know what the risk was to the LSE students really was… but I think the consequences for the Officals assigned to the party will be pretty severe.