[belluchan]

There's zero to nil chance we'll invade North Korea ever. North Korea could devastate the global economy by bombing Seoul which is within artillery range and Japan, which it can fire missiles at.

North Korea would have to act first and they will never do that unless they are cornered.

[el_zorro]

The other important thing to do is to consider what would happen in the aftermath. Who wants to deal with that mess? Unification will be expensive and will take decades. Reintegration in Germany is still ongoing, and East Germany wasn't nearly as bad off as DPRK is today. They clearly cannot win a shooting war, even if they do damage to the other side. The simple reason nothing is done about them is because no one wants to pick up the pieces when it's over.

[belluchan]

It just sucks for those poor people in those horrible detention camps. Maybe there's some kind of diplomatic solution for those people. The ruling elite come across as mafia style corrupt leaders.

[sixQuarks]

Isn't it possible to drop elite forces into the country, have them locate and then simply execute the top leaders?

[mef]

Do you think that would increase or decrease the chances of the North Korean military launching nukes?

[ak217]

They don't seem to have any nukes to launch, nor the ability to sustain conflict. The only thing they are capable of is provocations and a one-time surprise attack (the artillery probably wouldn't do significant damage, but a dirty bomb snuck across the border would).

Given their escalating fondness of low-level provocations, the option of a surgical strike against the leadership gains appeal over time (but doesn't outweigh the downsides of having to deal with a broken nation afterwards yet).

[belluchan]

> nor the ability to sustain conflict.

How do you know this? The CIA world factbook puts N Korea's army at 6 million people. Seems like they have the ability to weather a sustained conflict just fine:

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...

[sixQuarks]

decrease

[walshemj]

The Russians tried that in Afghanistan - but I suspect that if china has some decent SF like the Spetnaz they could take out the leadership in a decapitation strike and put their own guys in and it would probably work cant see there being much resistance from the local population as opposed to Afganistan.

[pwnna]

And then..?

[sixQuarks]

all our problems are solved. The end

[pwnna]

I'm going to assume that this is sarcastic.

[icegreentea]

Consider this. NK probably has some degree of decentralization and/or redundancy in their chain of command. You bet they have a fail-deadly system in place to get their conventional artillery (the ones pointed at the north half of Seoul) to fire in case of an attempted decapitation strike, say nothing of their possible WMD systems.