"North Korea cannot win if it goes to war with South Korea. Even if it has nuclear weapons, it may inflict fatal damage, but cannot win," Roh was quoted as saying. "A country doesn't go to war with a country that it cannot defeat."
I guess North Korea didn't know it could not defeat South Korea in 1950.
And Japan didn't know it could not defeat America in 1941 (remember today's anniversary).
And Germany didn't know it could not defeat the Soviet Union in 1941.
And the Soviet Union didn't know it could not defeat Afghanistan.
And China didn't know it could not defeat Vietnam in 1978.
And Argentina didn't know it could not defeat Britain in 1982.
And Egypt and Syria did not know the couldn't defeat Israel in 1973.
Clearly, I could go on. The point is that a country doesn't go to war with a country that it doesn't believe it can't defeat. In all the examples above, the countries thought they could win. And to be fair, they probably could have in at least some of the cases. But nobody adds up all the strengths prior to war and then everybody just accepts that one side will win so why go through the motions. Wars must be fought to be won and lost.
So it doesn't matter if everyone knows that North Korea couldn't win if they invaded South Korea. If North Korea believes they can win, they may invade. And since wars must be fought to decide victors and losers, one can't tell what will happen when the balloon goes up even if the odds seem to favor one side. Heck, the confident victim makes the hopeless aggressor's job a little easier just by believing the aggressor wouldn't dare attack.
Further, even if North Korea knows an open war will almost certainly lead to their defeat, if they think that not going to war will without a doubt lead to their defeat, then going to war with the odds against them actually improves their odds.
Just don't count on our enemies being rational as we define rationality.
Hmm. I think I just described the basic flaw of the Baker commission.
