Whatever NK launches, THADD will take out. It's their conventional weapons that pose the greatest danger right now.
I agree...but their conventional military is no match for South Korea alone...let alone SK backed by America.
NK's economy has been horrific for decades...and because of that, they simply have not had the money to spend on weaponry - let alone technological improvements.
Their air force, army, and navy are old and obsolete. On top of which, they are so broke, they cannot afford the fuel to train much...so their skill set on their more sophisticated weapons (like air power) is severely lacking.
While SK's military is large, powerful and very up-to-date. Plus, it is very well trained.
And that disparity is growing every year.
SK would gain total air superiorly in a few days..a week at most. Her aircraft are several generations ahead of the North's and their pilots are FAR better trained. And despite all this talk of a huge number of NK artillery...they are almost all towed. Which means they are very vulnerable to counter battery fire. Whereas much of the South's artillery is not as it largely self-propelled.
And forget about the North's tanks...they are incredibly old and near-useless. But the South has top-of-the-line, modern tanks.
And forget about manpower...it means almost nothing if your enemy has complete control of the skies AND has sophisticated weapons to take advantage of that superiority PLUS has technological superiority in every other conventional field as well (like artillery).
The only threat the North poses conventionally at all is that age old 'bombardment of Seoul from caves with artillery' thingy.
Yeah...that is so...but obviously Seoul would be evacuated if the war was imminent. And again, the South would relatively quickly either take out or overrun those positions within a few days/weeks.
So, yeah, the North could make things difficult for the South for the first week or so. But in the end, they would be powerless (outside of their nukes) to stop the South alone from completely over-running the North eventually. The North knows this, so they would not try another 1950-style invasion (as back then, they HAD superiority over the South).
No, the main reason, IMO, why the North developed nukes is because they know that they simply cannot keep up with the South conventionally...and nukes were their only chance at defending themselves if the South/America wanted to attack.
And, other than the promise of American nuclear retaliation against the North, the South does not need America's help to defend itself anymore against the North. Not at all.
