Writing in The Texas National Security Review, Daryl Press and Nicholas Anderson investigate the long-standing perception of North Korea’s artillery as an existential threat to Seoul. For decades, the North Korean military has faced increasing conventional disadvantages against its South Korean and U.S. counterparts, leading Pyongyang to develop asymmetric capabilities, including its nuclear program and long-range artillery aimed at coercing the South.
This article introduces a new modeling framework designed to assess the consequences of an artillery exchange on the Korean Peninsula under various scenarios. The findings indicate that North Korea’s conventional artillery capabilities are significantly less potent than widely understood. This reduced threat is attributed to South Korea’s ongoing military modernization efforts and its extensive civil defense preparations.
While any conflict would incur costs for both sides, projected losses in Seoul would be one to two orders of magnitude lower than typical public estimates. This assessment suggests a more stable conventional deterrent if North Korean leadership accurately perceives its military’s conventional limitations, potentially reducing the likelihood of provocation. However, the study also highlights a growing danger: the North Korean military’s weakening conventional position could decrease crisis stability—including potentially increasing the temptation for a pre-emptive strike by South Korea—and elevate the risks of nuclear escalation if a conventional conflict were to begin.
Read here.
