Reasonable Conventional Options In A Second Korean War

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Hoover Institute

Reasonable Conventional Options In A Second Korean War

by Miles Maochun Yu

Wednesday, November 15, 2017

While the world is abuzz about North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, it is Pyongyang’s conventional capabilities that are not given sufficient attention. As mentions of a general war with North Korea are hardly absent on a daily basis, this indolence on seriously dealing with Kim’s conventional forces is alarmingly dangerous, because, despite the global focus on Kim’s nascent nuclear weapons and missile programs, the actual fighting will remain overwhelmingly conventional, primarily because Kim knows that his strength lies preponderantly in his conventional capabilities, not nuclear or thermonuclear ones.

What are then the reasonable conventional military options that could remove North Korea’s offensive capability?

First, the North Korean regime is the world’s most militaristic state with the whole nation mobilized for warfighting. Unlike other communist states, most notably China, where the communist party controls the military, the military in North Korea, collectively known as the Korean People’s Army [KPA], exerts total control of all key aspects of the state and society guided by a sweeping cardinal principle called Songun (“Military First”).