The Nato chief is saying that North Korea is getting access to Russian missile and nuclear technology, in exchange for troops. If this is true, should South Korea launch a preemptive attack on North Korea before these new technologies are properly integrated and utilized?
No. NK has a bunch of artillery hidden in the forested mountains just north of the border. And and SK has a lot of population centers within within firing distance. And this includes rockets/missiles with some rather spicy warheads.
And rough terrain ensures that a quick blitz to topple the government and their nuclear arsenal won’t work.
Sure, NK will not be able to hold off SK in the long run, especially if SK invites friends. But Seoul will be leveled.
Plus, China really does not want a US ally on its border, and are likely to intervene.
I guess the counter argument would be that the situation will only get worse the longer you wait. That argument has been used many times in history.
Why do you think the situation can only get worse given more time?
I don’t think so. Probably not. It’s a classical argument when starting a war (Germany/WW1 and Japan/WW2), that’s why I brought it up.
I.e. if you believe there is a very high risk for war at SOME point, then you probably want to take control of the situation and start the war at a time and place of your choice. If you can destroy 90% of NKs ICMBs (or other kinds of carriers) today, it’s better to start the war now, if the new technology will bring that number down to say 50% by tomorrow.
The conspiracy theorist in me says that it’s not impossible that the recent coup attempt in SK was somehow related to this kind of thinking. This is how the military tend to reason after all.
Interesting related video: https://youtu.be/xSnZLWjOkHU
War is very seldom inevitable. We tend not to focus much attention on wars that never started, because that does not make for very engaging history content. It happens far more frequently than a war actually starting though.
True!
It kinda can’t, though. ‘South Korea will be leveled’ is basically the worst imaginable outcome, unless you’re saying they’ll nuke the friends SK invites. Realistically, ‘no nukes/missile strikes at other countries’ is probably going to be China’s only requirement for assistance. Which would make it a horrible grueling land war. Which is going to suck with or without Russian ICBMs in NK.