North Korea’s Military THREAT: pYONGYANG’S CONVENTIONAL FORCES, WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION, and BALLISTIC MISSILES

North Korea’s conventional threat [is] sufficient
to make an allied preemptive invasion to overthrow the
North Korean regime a highly unattractive option. In
theory, U.S. forces could carry out preemptive attacks
to destroy known North Korean nuclear facilities and
missile emplacements, but such attacks could provoke
North Korean retaliation and trigger a general conflict.
Moreover, Washington and Seoul cannot overthrow the
North Korean regime by force or destroy its strategic
military assets without risking devastating losses in the
process. Meanwhile, North Korea cannot invade the
South without inviting a fatal counterattack from the
United States and South Korea. Thus, the balance of
forces that emerged from the Korean War, and which
helped maintain the armistice for more than 50 years,
remains in place.