Would North Korea really launch a nuke

[Voltaire2]

33. Only if the regime was being attacked.

There is no evidence that North Korea would initiate a nuclear attack, knowing that annihilation would be the outcome, but if instead the regime was faced with annihilation, they would have nothing to lose by launching their nukes, that us if they actually have any operational weapons.

Note also that they have enough deployed artillary to pretty much wipe out Seoul in fairly short order using conventional weapons, which is one reason South Korea is not too keen on confrontation.