On Thursday, the North's main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary that it will not tolerate what it claimed was South Korea's aggression in its waters.
"Our unchanged principle is no forgiveness and merciless punishment for warmongers who infringe upon our republic's dignity and sovereignty," said the commentary, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. It didn't specify how the North would punish the South.
Oh dear. What are the North Koreans going to do to South Korea? Bleed on them?
Seriously, North Korea has lost the ability to invade South Korea with much chance of success. North Korea would have to be lucky so many ways and South Korea would have to be stupid and unlucky in so many ways to describe a path to North Korea victory, that it is almost pointless to even consider the possibility.
And North Korea does not yet have a nuclear threat to unleash. And even if North Korea did, we'd surely use that as an excuse to nuke North Korea's nuclear infrastructure.
So North Korea can basically shell Seoul, with or without chemical weapons, and then watch as South korea invades North Korea. The only question would be whether Seoul would press for regime change in the north or settle for pushing a buffer zone north of the DMZ to shield Seoul from bombardment.
