I'm not too worried about it. Does the North have the ability to cause massive casualties to South Korean citizens? Oh yes. Now does the North have the ability to put up an effective resistance against the US or South Korean military? Not a chance.
The North Korean military is in shambles. It's a shell of what it used to be and that wasn't much to brag about either.
I really don't think that any kind of war will break out. When I was a kid I thought there was a good chance of that because my mom would always tell me to be home before dark or I'd be kidnapped by North Koreans. Worked well enough and that stuff was still happening then. North Korean leaflets came down sometimes in the north winds. I had a nice collection of them but I think my mother threw them away. Anyway, they know better than to launch an attack against the South. They'd take a ton of civilians with them but one thing for sure is that it would be suicide.
I think this is right. If North Korea has shown anything it is about self-preservation, not suicide. While they could cause huge damage to the South, it seems highly unlikely they could ever win...little less sustain a military drive beyond, say, destroying Seoul. We must remember that Russia and China would not be providing direct support for a North Korean invasion this time -- and, if providing any support at all, it is likely to be reluctant. The North hasn't got the petrol or other resources (food, etc.) to sustain a long campaign. Its weapons are out dated. It's army is untested. While its boarder guards may be an elite corps, ther is every indication that large swaths of the military is basically jailers, who get some better rations than the general population but not much. The question is are they able to bring much to a fight?
And, as has been pointed out before, by others, an invasion would expose large numbers of Northern troops to the lies that their government tells. Just think, even after five years of war, Soviet troops at the end of world war II rolling through devestated Poleland and Ceckloslavakia, not to mention Germany, became aware of the higher standard of living. Troops from the north would be seeing one of the largest consumer societies on earth and understand that their Southern breatheren were living far in advance of conditions in the north...the first supermarket they found would tell them more about the South than a thousand books. In other words, troops exposed to the south would become suspect and unreliable.
The problem the north faces is how to make the transition to the next generation of leadership...if that generation is to come from Kim's family. There is little doubt that the heir apparent, at 26, is unlikely to be ready to govern alone. Kim looks ill and to be dying...if not tomorrow in a year or two. The scary thing might be a power struggle not only among Kim's family but by military hard-liners...most of whom are unknown to the South or the West. It is also very unclear how this could turn out...the disruption of government in such a senario, for example, could once again exacerbate an already precarious food shortage in the north.
