Michael Ash wrote in message news:mail-0E43D5.00500922122003@localhost...

North Korea, on the other hand, has enough artillery on the border to
completely level Seoul within a few hours, from what I understand.

I'm not sure that this is possible with any real-world conventional
artillery. "Damage" Seoul, yes. "Completely level" is a whole other
order of destruction.

That alone is enough to stop any plans for an invasion.

.... depends on our motivation. If we were, for instance, responding
to a North Korean nuclear attack, damage to Seoul might be considered
an acceptable cost.

In a way, it's even
worse than the nuclear problem. Unlike a nuke and its delivery system,
there's no possible way to take out mumble-thousand pieces of artillery
before the deed has been done.

I'm not sure that this is true. The artillery pieces, in firing,
would be giving away their location, and we would have total air
superiority over the battlefield.

Sincerely Yours,
Jordan