People who count on economic sanctions halting North Korea’s push towards perfecting nuclear missiles are essentially “whistling past the graveyard.”

North Korea (a.k.a. the DPRK) already has most of what it needs to continue pursuing that task and, sanctions or no sanctions, Kim Jong Un has enough cash stashed in various sketchy banks, both in the “Third World,” as well as in numbered accounts hidden under shell corporations in “First World” depositories, to pay for what he wants. In addition there are enough rogue businesses in China and elsewhere who are quite prepared to operate under the radar to supply him for a healthy profit.

What, if anything, has any chance of stopping the momentum towards war? Constant saber-rattling and military exercises, verbal threats from the White House, and much of what we have been reading about lately?

This is not, pardon the expression, “rocket science.”

The Kim Dynasty desperately wants to stay in power. And because North Korea was so totally devastated during the mid-century Korean War in which the United States played the leading role, that regime has successfully instilled in the mass psyche of its population the fear of a repeat performance unless Pyongyang has the capacity to wreak equal havoc on its potential foes.

At the same time, ever since the ceasefire of 1953, the North has wanted some kind of official peace treaty that would recognize its current government and provide international guarantees of its survival.

On the other hand, U.S. policy has long held that the DPRK is illegitimate and, not very secretly, has favored “regime change.”

Now it’s an incontrovertible fact that the Kim Dynasty is a very nasty piece of work and that the greater portion of the population of the North, save the privileged few in favor with the government who mostly live in the capital, endure some of the worst hardships and repression on the planet.

However, the most realistic estimates lead one to believe that, like harsh (pseudo) Communist establishments elsewhere in recent history, changes will surely come, slowly at first then with increasing speed, as the sheer economic necessity of opening to the outside world occurs. This opening can, indeed must, happen if the paranoia of the current Pyongyang leadership is abated by a peace treaty that officially leaves it in place.

If the DPRK gets its final peace treaty signed off by all the former belligerents, it will likely say that it is prepared to stop the development of nukes. That will probably be a fabrication and Kim Jong Un will conceal the weapons he already has or as many of them he thinks he can successfully hide.

But Pyongyang will not openly continue shooting off rockets or engaging in test detonations that could be easily detected. What this means is that the North sees such arms as protection if ever the outside world reneges on the peace treaty, but even Kim Jong Un is not so foolish as to suppose he can get away with a first strike without it leading to instant calamity for his regime.

In other words, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s pronouncement of last week that “the U.S. is not seeking regime change” is welcome news. It remains to be seen whether the adults in our own regime, folks like Tillerson, Mattis, Dunford, Kelly, et al, can keep their president from undermining this small but promising opening towards reason and stability.

Let’s pray they can also protect America and the rest of the world from Trumpian insanity.