Many jokes have been made recently at the expense of North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Un, but is the lack of fear warranted? With its declaration of war against South Korea, many believe that the North could inflict quite a bit of damage if the situation worsens.
"We've seen reports of a new and unconstructive statement from North Korea. We take these threats seriously and remain in close contact with our South Korean allies," said Caitlin Hayden, spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council.
North Korea has roughly 1.1 million troops in active service, and about 800,000 of those are currently stationed very close to the demilitarized zone, along with 10,000 artillery pieces that are capable of reaching Seoul.
Additionally, North Korea has about 5000 tons of nuclear warheads that they could fire on the capitol of South Korea should a war break out. Though none of this puts the United States in substantial danger (we would invest roughly 30,000 troops to the cause), opposing Kim Jong-Un is still a daunting proposition for those who live in the Far East.
North Korea has four different kinds of missiles that they could potentially launch if the war situation becomes dire:
Nodong(Range: 1000km)
It's range is enough that it could strike anywhere in the Korean peninsula and even get some of Japan as well. It's not very accurate though, so it would not be used against U.S. bases but instead against civilians in South Korea.
Taepodong-1 (Range: 2200km)
This was North Korea's first multi-stage missile and was representative of a large leap in technology at the time. It is capable of reaching Tokyo, but again, accuracy issues prevent it from being too large of a threat.
Musudan (Range: 4000km)
Some estimats say that North Korea has as many as 200 of these missiles, and they are troublesome because they have enough range to strikie accurately anywhere on Japanese soil.
Taepodong-2 (Range: 6000km)
Leadership in Pyongyang has already successfully launched a variant of one of these missiles into space, and U.S. leadership is concerned over its effectivess. It has enough range to strike U.S. soil in Alaska.
There have also been reports that a recently released picture shows a supposed North Korean hitlist of American locations, including: Hawaii, Southern California, Washington D.C., and Austin, TX. Though it's not believed that North Korea is capable of reaching these places with their current technology, the fact that they think they can is alarming.
In the final analysis, it is highly unlikely that North Korea would be able to win or even sustain a war that the U.S. is involved in. They can, however, inflict quite a bit of damage should they choose to.
"In the war game simulations eventually we prevail, but it's World War I (levels of) casualties," Says Bruce Klingner, a former CIA analyst.
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