Once, the North Koreans lavished resources on the armed forces, too, but it has been a while since there were enough goodies scraped from the peasants to support both a lavish elite lifestyle and pay for a military capable of invading South Korea.
Indeed, the main reason I supported talks with North Korea even when we gave some aid was that I figured that we would never give enough to reverse Pyongyang's decline, but would just give enough to provide the North's elites with hope that they'd score big with more talks rather than gamble on a military victory while their eroding military still had enought strength.
The South Koreans no longer fear invasion:
South Korea believes that North Korean military forces are declining in capability, and are incapable of defeating South Korea. Within two or three years, the southerners believe the north will be unable to do a lot of damage to the south. The situation has changed radically in the last decade, where once the south feared massive damage from a northern invasion.
This is interesting. This is more than just believing that North Korea can't successfully invade. This speaks of North Korea being unable to do a lot of damage to South Korea. This can only mean that South Korea is prepared to invade North Korea.
Remember that North Korea has thousands of artillery pieces--both tube and rocket--dug in north of the DMZ pointed at Seoul just across the border. Plus longer range ballistic missiles.
The South Koreans must believe they can shoot down most of the missiles and must have plans to destroy the North Korean artillery pieces before they can shoot many rounds into Seoul. Maybe the South Koreans believe that they can rapidly destroy all those pieces with precision air and artillery, but I'm skeptical of South Korea having that ability.
The only real way to clear out that artillery, I believe, is for South Korea to carve out a no-launch zone with their own army:
If a crisis erupts on the Korean peninsula and the North Koreans fire even a warning barrage at Seoul, I expect the South Korean army to march north of the DMZ and carve out a no-launch zone in an arc around Seoul to protect their capital and home to a quarter of the population from North Korean artillery.
I personally think the North Korean elites will face a Romania moment when the people quite literally kill their overlords. Actually, I expect it to be more a Mussolini event. The North Korean elites will be lucky to live long enough for trials.
UPDATE: South Korea's defense minister is confident South Korean forces could take out North Korea's nuclear threat if needed:
There are about 100 sites related to the nuclear" programme, Kim Tae-Young told legislators during a parliamentary audit of his ministry's work.
"We have a complete list of them," Yonhap news agency quoted him as saying.
Kim expressed confidence his forces could hit any of them "if it is absolutely clear a North Korean offensive is imminent."
North Korea will soon be limited to begging for help, as their capacity for blackmail and threats is diminished. I don't know how long the regime can last, under the circumstances.
