It’s not going to go anywhere. If NK wanted to invade, they’d have flattened Seoul, not rattled sabers at some island. They’d have waited until Christmas to take advantage of reduced operational readiness in PACCOM instead of coming off the tail of a big SK manuever exercise. We don’t want to invade. A) we turn China from a containment partner into a regional hindrance and potential NK co-belligerent, B) NK will kill a bunch of SK civvies before being taken offline, and C) SK and the international community will then have to rebuild and reintegrate north korea’s economy. Reintegrating Germany has sidelined west germany for a generation. Trying to create a unified Korean peninsula would sideline them for two or three generations and reduce an ally’s political reliability and military utility.
The only thing that justifies force would be an effective and lasting removal of enrichment programs. I can’t think of a country that produces vulnerable programs in a post-osirak world.
thank you. voice of reason right here.