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This should not come as a surprise, and it's actually very old news. South Korea knows that the "cost" of U.S. military action against North Korea may very well be the annihilation of Seoul in a North Korean nuclear attack, and I can understand why they would think that way.

This is nothing more than MAD (mutually-assured destruction) applied throught a third party.

"South Korea knows that the "cost" of U.S. military action against North Korea may very well be the annihilation of Seoul in a North Korean nuclear attack"

Supposedly, Seoul is well within range of North Korea's arsenal of conventional missiles and could be leveled without a single piece of North Korean equipment having to roll across the DMZ. That would negate their even having to use their nuclear weapons for anything north of Seoul. Tokyo, however, I can imagine would be hit with a nuclear weapons fairly soon. If, God forbid, they've managed to miniaturize the components for the nuclear weapons enough that they can mount them on a Tae-po Dong II, then we could see nuclear weapons capable of hitting US shores as well. That's the risk we take with any military action against North Korea. At the same time, if we don't take action, they're going to complete work on the Tae-po Dong III, which could deliver a nuclear weapon to Washington, DC. At that point, we'd be at the mercy of the North Koreans.

This is, yet again, the reason I've said all along that we should have taken care of North Korea before Iraq. North Korea was a bigger threat than Iraq before we went in, and they're a much bigger threat now than Iraq ever was.

"This should not come as a surprise, and it's actually very old news. South Korea knows that the "cost" of U.S. military action against North Korea may very well be the annihilation of Seoul in a North Korean nuclear attack, and I can understand why they would think that way."

We would never strike North Korea without taking out NK's nuclear capability in this strike. We cannot allow North Korea to become the nuclear breadbasket of the terrorist world, and we will not allow this to happen. As the Bush Administration said a few weeks ago: one way or another, North Korea is going to give up its nuclear weapons. The alternative risks nothing less than the destruction of our country as we know it in a nuclear sneak atack by terrorists. In the final analysis, the position of South Korea's government will not be a major factor in our decision because this is such a critical national security issue. The naive opinions of terrorist appeasers and apologizers in Canada and Europe will also not be a significant factor. But if we have to hit North Korea, we'll hit them so fast and so hard that they won't be able to do much to South Korea in retaliation.

South Korea knows that the "cost" of U.S. military action against North Korea may very well be the annihilation of Seoul in a North Korean nuclear attack, and I can understand why they would think that way.

I don't think so. I think South Korea knows that the only reason for an American offensive against North Korea would be a pre-emptive strike to keep NoKo from going nuclear, including against the South. There has to be a domestic political reason for this absurd posture by the South.