the case seems strong for direct intervention, but it also does for Burma (Myanmar)also Somalia and a number of other rogue and failed states.

In 1994 it could have been - and should have been - Rwanda, but with President Clinton's dithering over the word 'genocide', the default of no action was taken, to the world's eternal shame.

Maybe it's the timing, rather than the reasoning for intervention.
But, as Benjamin Franklin said, "There was never a good war, or a bad peace."

The author's arguments are sound, in principle, however China has the veto over international humanitarian intervention in North Korea and the oligarchy in power in the Middle Kingdom doesn't give a rat's about human rights. Order,stability and a buffer state are more likely the main considerations of the mandarins in Beijing.

The refusal of the west to do something about this odious regime illustrates the hypocrisy of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. If ever there was a legitimate candidate for "regime change" North Korea is it. Instead our leaders took us into failed and pointless wars for oil.
Either democracy and freedom is what we believe in and we believe in it for all people or we are just hypocrites who can take on the weaklings(saddam, the taliban) but when it comes to anyone who might need some actual sacrifice on our part we are nothing but cowards.

"If your human rights are not for everybody, they are not rights, they are just privileges."

Shrode - I certainly agree: NK is far from the only country whose people need help, but as we can't fix all these rogue/failed countries at once, we need to approach them in some order of priority, in this case the security implications add strongly to the humanitarian ones. Like a doctor or engineer with a failing structure, you work where you can be most effective & gain the most benefit even if major problems loom in other areas. Multiple problems are an incentive for action, not a justification for inaction.

Mac - China certainly doesn't care about the human rights violations in North Korea. But if it thinks the regime is going to fall apart (Kim Jong Un may not hold anything like his fathers control), or that South Korea and Japan will develop nuclear weapons in return, it may change its mind. I'm doubtful, but we should at least discuss it.

I would not be certain what an interventionist theorem would achieve; other than the typical Imperial hubris and the defence or that should be The Aggressor force, for that is what it does now; The whole concept of a National Defence force was exactly that; - Defend Us from Aggression, intervening into another Governments business is no different than someone interfering in our own business whether we think they are right in what they do , or wrong ; It is not our choice to force someone else’s own will upon others.Nor ours onto others.
Nth Korean Government is without its doubts a despotic regime, but it is no more Despotic and probably less corrupt than our very own Despotic democratic regimes. But our Despotism is cloaked in a thin Demagogic veneer of Populist Politics and the purchase of votes by stealing someone else’s wealth ; So in all seriousness rethink about to catastrophic disaster our own despotism has created and apply aid to those who are closest ; and realise it.
Interventionist philosophy is nothing other than a branch of the Feudal lord era of military conquering; But Who foots the bill?

I would not be certain what an interventionist theorem would achieve; other than the typical Imperial hubris and the defence or that should be The Aggressor force, for that is what it does now; The whole concept of a National Defence force was exactly that; - Defend Us from Aggression, intervening into another Governments business is no different than someone interfering in our own business whether we think they are right in what they do , or wrong ; It is not our choice to force someone else’s own will upon others.
Nth Korean Government is without its doubts a despotic regime, but it is no more Despotic and probably less corrupt than our very own Despotic democratic regimes. But our Despotism is cloaked in a thin Demagogic veneer of Populist Politics and the purchase of votes by stealing someone else’s wealth ; So in all seriousness rethink about to catastrophic disaster our own despotism has created and apply aid to those who are closest ; and then realise it.
Interventionist philosophy is nothing other than a branch of the Feudal lord era of military conquering; But Who foots the bill?