No doubt. But as soon as he tries to blow up Seoul, he also invites a massive cross-border response against the conventional forces.
His options then are to keep them in large bodies, which exposes them to attack; or to scatter them, which makes them militarily useless -- and in these days of GPS-guided bombs, it's not all that expensive to attack even the scattered groups directly.
I could see him using his sizeable Special Forces and assymetric (read SRBMs) to wreak havoc nationwide.
Yes, especially among civilians. The question then would be the extent to which he could disrupt the SK military response.
I think the extent of a NORK invasion (realistically) would be a land grab for the 5 Yellow Sea Islands, and try to take and hold a 5-10 mile corridor south of the DMZ (ala the Egyptians in 73’) and sue for peace.
I agree with your take on what's realistic for the North Koreans to accomplish with conventional forces (assuming they're sane, of course).
And it may well be in their plans to sue for peace, hoping to keep what they've taken by threat of nuclear retaliation should the South refuse to give in. But that presupposes that the South Koreans are willing to bargain with them on that basis.
But I think that, strategically, it would make more sense for SK to clean them out of the corridor; and I think enough other countries are ready to take care of the NK problem, that the US (and probably the South Koreans themselves) can credibly threaten a nuclear response if the North Koreans try to make nuclear threats following an attack.
“No doubt. But as soon as he tries to blow up Seoul, he also invites a massive cross-border response against the conventional forces.”
Speaking of sanity, given the recent escalatory provocations, I think Kim may be crazy enough to think he could get away with a limited shelling of portions of the mainland, north of Seoul, or perhaps even a “limited” shelling of Seoul itself, without inviting a regime change style invasion by the ROK/US.
At which time our decision makers are going to have to decide just how far do we want to take things. I imagine that’s one of the things warplanners at the Pentagon are looking at atm. Would a “limited” artillery barrage onto the mainland provoke general hostilities across the peninsula or would be good with silencing the offending guns and maybe a regime target or two?