And the closest it was ever to the US technologically in a military sense.
This is obviously bullshit, seeing as now they have nuclear and likely biochemical weapon capacity. Even if they lack the delivery mechanisms required to get those towards the U.S. coast, they're only meters away from the closest American ally in the region. There's no way around that scenario that doesn't end in mass South Korean civilian casualties, do you really think the U.S. is willing to make that sacrifice?
Regardless, North Korea is still better equipped and organised than any military opponent the U.S. has engaged in a military conflict with in recent history - and even if such conflicts have resulted in ostensible regime change, they've all resulted in countries full of hostile insurgencies. Iraq and Afghanistan were victories in only the narrowest possible sense of the word, in both cases the U.S. failed to neutralise militant adversaries in the region.
How do you think this will go up against a better equipped and organised opponent that has spent the better part of 50 years dedicating their entire economy and political system towards the possibility of this conflict? Even if you blitz infrastructure and march into Pyongyang, you're still opening yourself up to what will probably be decades of militant insurgency, the threat of WMDs, the likely devastation of one of your closest allies, and the antagonism of your most powerful rival in the international system.
The north had always been the industrial side on the peninsula. It was still like that when the war occured. One of the North's advantages going into the conflict was that here y had many, many factories which they were able to use for war production.
Uh, source? Under Japanese occupation, most urban industry was located in the south of the peninsula. Industrialisation in the North was mostly restricted to steel mills. I don't imagine these would have been of significant use seeing as actual manufacturing was done in the south.
Literally because of economic welfare they were getting from China and the USSR.
Right, but that doesn't somehow make this industrialisation not exist. The point still remains that they are significantly - in relative terms, hugely - more developed than they were in 1950. This development has been singularly oriented towards the functioning of the military.
If NK tried to pull what they did in the Korean War there is no way in hell China today would provide any sort of open support.
I'm not talking open support, but you're honestly deluded if you think China would just sit silently while their greatest geopolitical enemy conducts an extensive military occupation and dick-wagging right across the border. China supports North Korea largely because it provides a buffer state between them and U.S. military presence. In the absence of that buffer state, amassing troops at the border is probably the least they will do.
Are you really so naive as to think whoever the "clear aggressor" is actually matters here?
We would have enough ships and subs parked nearby to wipe out most of Manchuria without even having to use nukes.
Right, openly antagonising and threatening your most powerful rival in the entire international system, one only rivalled by you in military size and spending, and one that has an extensive stockpile of nuclear warheads with the capacity to reach the United States - not to mention one that contributes hugely to the backbone *your own economy - is a really good idea that could never go wrong at all.
Of course. Instead we would use a much larger version of the strategic missile bombardment we used in the opening of the Iraq War. Wreck the entire infrastructure in a single night with minimal civilian casualties then super blitz them on the ground.
Right, and Iraq was a huge, clear victory and success story, yeah?