And the rest of the military/command structure sufficiently devastated to prevent more than soldier's attacking SKorea?Absent the nuclear trump card, North Korea has two chances of winning a war with South Korea: slim and none, and slim's on Christmas Vacation.
Do we have enough? What would it take?
Actually, the question is whether we could restrain the ROK forces from charging on the Yalu, assuming that we merely wished to maintain the present status quo and not perform "regime change."
My assumption is that somehow, SKorea and US could deal with the foot soldiers if the rest of the junk were taken care of.
I don't know that the SK's want to entice China into anything at all. I suspect a lot of them would just as soon even leave NK to themselves. Others with family there would love reunification under democracy.
When I was there in August, they people seemed most intent on getting on with the BUSINESS of life--enjoying good food and creature comforts and pretending the rest of the world didn't exist. Anything we did to annoy the North was viewed disdainfully.
They know the north is crazy and dangerous. But they seem to court denial about it at the same time.