Admiral Piett wrote:More on a possible South Korean nuclear program:
http://38north.org/2016/09/bclee091516/...The US-ROK relationship, which places US strategic interests ahead of South Korea’s fears about the North, has prompted pundits in the South to pose a necessary question: Why should South Korean foreign policy be held hostage by North Korean nukes? One widespread answer has been that South Korea is not allowed to develop its own nuclear weapons. Since the South’s clandestine nuclear weapons program, initiated in the 1970s under Park Chung-hee, was discovered, there has been great pressure from the United States for Seoul to refrain from building a nuclear deterrent. Instead, South Korean leaders have relied on the US pledge of a “nuclear umbrella” that would be able to deter and retaliate to any nuclear attack against the South.
Still, a number of hawkish politicians and experts in South Korea have made no secret of their penchant for nuclear weapons, suggesting that North Korea’s nuclear program makes it feasible and necessary for Seoul to pursue a counterpart effort. In particular, these advocates do not appear to rule out the possibility of acquiring nuclear weapons if the US missile defense system, which remains a potential flashpoint between South Korea and China, either becomes unavailable or proves insufficient to provide security for South Korea...
...As North Korea’s nuclear and missile development poses an increasingly dire threat, calls for South Korea to acquire an indigenous nuclear weapons capability are becoming ever more common. Support for a South Korean nuclear weapons program has fluctuated between 52 and 68 percent in domestic polls, and if North Korea’s nuclear arsenal reaches the size of India or Pakistan’s stockpiles, domestic pressures for a ROK nuclear program would be stronger than ever...
It's amazing when you consider that NK can't supply it's army with food if it orders a general mobilization because it has less than 10% of trucks than the German or Soviet forces in the East and no horses and a lot less trains ...
If Lumpy orders a mobilization, by the time he orders a demobilization 1 month later there's no army left. ROK doesn't have to go into North Korea it has to make a Korean BBQ fest at the border.
The only way for his nuclear blufff to work is for the leftern most portions of the opposition in ROK grab power and then turn into the Jill Stein approach towards Lumpy and outright capitulate. Every other option ends with lumpy getting self check mated. But my problem with that scenario is that it only prolongs his reign a few years. He will turn into NK's version of Lukanov. He outlived his usefulness in 6 years and got assasinated in 1996. They will just turn into a criminal hunta with the excess of money and access to ROK goods and the money will go out into the clans that will form.
