If DPRK was as irrelevant as they told us, then what's all the panic about?

Price has gone up. Time to pay up

I think the other comment is partially a meme/joke, but also the US already tried once to defeat the north and lost... or at least gave up. That was immediately post-WWII US military and economy roaring after facing basically zero setbacks unlike most of the world. Korea and China were coming out of occupation by the fascist Japanese and a brutal incredibly long civil war in China... and still managed to hold their own against, again, the US still at it's WWII strength. And it's not like the US wasn't trying to "win" either they leveled every fucking building in the north and still couldn't make them give up. I'm not an expert on North Korean military shit now, but last I heard they learned from the war with the US and built everything underground so it can't really be targeted by the US. Not easily anyway. We see in Gaza that Israel cannot damage much of the underground infrastructure... imagine that on the nation state level. US would be on a total suicide mission to even try an invasion. Not to mention their nuclear capabilities.

The US relies on its asian puppet colonies KUSA and Japan to act as meaningful proxies. KUSA is mostly filled with forced conscripts so judging from the IOF, they don't look like to be an actual competant fighting force. Also in the event of war, military command goes to the US who, as we've seen in Ukraine and Occupied Palestine + Yemen, are so corrupt that it would be a liability so there is a possibility of refuseniks/mutinies in the KUSA army.

Artillery shells are pointed at seoul at all times and can wipe out the entire city in a matter of hours. This inevitably means that SK's economy collapses as all the Chaebols and other assorted bourgeoisie flee and the entire country is militarized while the CIA controlled Korean government would spend all its time doing the classic slava Ukranian trick of kidnapping conscripts and whatnot.

The US backed NATO can't join the conflict because of Comrade Kim Jong Un's investment in nuclear ICBMs (Ukraine much?), inevitably, South Korea's place in the global supply chain would be used as a threat to G7 and the global south to support the war while further isolating the US.

A war with the DPRK could be a flashpoint to a proletarian revolution in KUSA and a complete breakdown of Chaebols which is why the endlessly corrupt and cruel south korean government would never go to war unless the US forced then to (meaning that the Chaebols would know in advance, the optics of which could prove fatal to the rogue state of the ROK).

They couldn't defeat them the first time around and they hadn't had decades to stockpile munitions back then. You can't defeat a country with air power, you can only destroy it, and the west pretty demonstrably only has air power.

The other comments explain it enough I think, I’d just like to add that I think there is a natural reaction to underestimate the North Koreans even among leftists, but imho I think the DPRK would do better in a war against the US in Korea than even the Russians in Ukraine. Just for comparison sake the Russians have been practicing the war in Ukraine for 30 years pretty much, but the DPRK has been practicing since the 1950’s.

I disagree I think they would like to unify Korea under a South Korean banner, but cannot do it due to the DPRKs military strength.

Filled using the giant spoon that was gifted to the worker's party in Stalin's will.

I hope that's the case, the very first thing they need to look at is increasing the country's power production capacity so that stable electricity can be supplied everywhere all at once instead of just Pyongyang. Hitting that milestone will result in a considerable amount of progress as the population will be able to do a lot more with less, people will have less chores due to the electrification and appliances that shorten time spent on such tasks which will open up people's time to doing more, both leisure and productive work in their spare time.

That and much more modern heavy machinery for many of the agricultural tasks the country has.

Robotics for factories would be a huge boon because they could reduce factory workforces enormously and push that labour towards other tasks.

The all out sanctions war on Russia was a monumental fuck up on the part of Biden admin. The fear of secondary sanctions was what kept Russia from working with Cuba, Iran, and DPRK this whole time. Now that threat is used up, and Russia no longer has any reason to conform to US sanctions on other countries.