I think the real fear was getting bogged down in yet another land war in Asia. Too bad we didn’t have the weaponry then that we do now. A single cruise missile dropped on party HQS might’ve got their attention.
We may not have had the sophisticated weapons systems that we have today, but we had superior weaponry to the NORKS and, even better, we had superior numbers of troops that could be deployed, if necessary.
Today, we would be hard-pressed to maintain an offensive against Luxembourg. Iraq and Afghanistan have depleted and exhausted our military - most of whom have come from the ranks of the reserves - as the result of repeated deployments to those s**tholes.
As long as our military-hating tinpot dictators want to play “soldier” all the while cutting the military, this is a formula that simply won’t work.
Vietnam, IMO, was America’s “experiment” with guerilla warfare and our generals and admirals discovered that we don’t know squat about it; still don’t. The irony is that the guerillas use similar tactics that our own Militiamen did during the Revolutionary War. It defeated the Brits and it is now defeating us.