North Korea has always issued threats. Can North Korea carry them out?
I assume they continue to be quite serious about that threat:
In 1994 a North Korean official declared, during a meeting with his South Korean counterpart at the North Korean capital Panmunjom, that the South Korean capital is not far from here. In wartime Seoul will become a sea of fire. This is what passes for North Korean diplomacy, subtle but brutal.
About a quarter of South Korea's population is in the Seoul region that is quite close to the DMZ and so vulnerable to long-range artillery fire.
But does the threat still work? Not just because repetition may dull the fear. Can North Korea actually strike Seoul at sea of fire levels? Their army may be too weak to push into or even close enough to Seoul to use basic artillery to bombard the city.
And the situation could be even worse from North Korea's perspective:
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. And if the attack is focused just on a no-launch zone, will Pyongyang unleash nukes that might be shot down and which would trigger an American nuclear retaliation?
I'm not sure how valuable the money and experience that North Korea has gotten from helping Russia invade Ukraine will be in the long run after a short-term bump.
UPDATE: Intersteing:
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspected the production of new artillery with a range exceeding 60 km (37 miles) that would be deployed at the South Korean border and bolster its ability to hit Seoul[.]
The correlation of forces has shifted.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
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