Given the recent unpleasantness off South Korea's western coast, I found this site interesting, especially the review of the north-to-south tunnels (you have to scroll down a bit).
H/T: The Gormogons
H/T: The Gormogons
Although commanded by a lunatic, and while a nation devastated by self inflicted poverty and starvation, they have a major military capability. They have not forgotten that they are still at war with South Korea, the US and who knows what other nations from our erstwhile UN "allies." They have been at war continuously since 1950. As the info at the link shows, they can deliver a severe blow to South Korea, and are in multiple, dug-in, hardened defensive positions able to absorb a tremendous amount of ordnance.
If (as is very possible, but hopefully unlikely) things turn to sh!te there, it will be very nasty business, at least for the initial stages, and costly to both sides. Read the stuff linked above and get a good grip on reality and don't let the jingoists prance around like it would be easy to take out this crackpot's forces. Him personally, and/or his designated successor may be a lot easier, but then who knows what the generals would do on their own.
Nasty stuff. Interesting times. Even without considering what CHina may want or need to do.
Remember, when we entered the war in '50, and particularly post-Inchon, we rolled up Kim's forces pretty quickly. The Chinese came in because they knew MacArthur would be hamstrung. Truman was afraid to try to move the country back onto a war footing 5 years after VE day, even though we could have done it and held Ivan in Europe and put enough force into Korea to turn back the Chinese as well.
That is not to say, at all, that the war would be easy. We do have some leverage over the Chinese that could pursuade them to deal with Kim in a way to settle him down. If that has little power, then a low yield nuke on Kim's compound could settle the issue.
Given the sheer numbers of NORKs, and the advantage they have in hardened defensive positions with interlocking fields of fire, and the god-forsaken hilly terrain that renders armor nearly useless, it would be a very slow and very costly fight to drive them from it. Especially given our thinly spread forces around the world, overworked reserves, dwindling air and naval assets, and lack of national will to fight any more.
They are not supermen, but there are hordes of NORKs. I am not sure the cost to win would be worthwhile just to depose a lunatic dictator. Maybe the starving masses would revolt, but if they did, even their pitiful rations would be stopped and given to the army, which would undoubtedly be sent to put down any uprising. The Korean culture seems to be violent and unmerciful, and any fighting there will be even worse than war usually is.
Just sayin'- going against the NORKs would not be as easy as chasing Iraqis down the roads in the desert, and probably a lot harder than chasing small bands of mujahdeen in the mountains of 'stan.