GPF Team

The items listed below represent potential emerging issues that our analysts are tracking. These can be long term or short term, but will be updated daily. If an item on our Watch List becomes critical, we will email you a full analysis explaining its significance. Each Saturday, we will follow up our daily Watch List […]

June 2, 2017 Jihadist groups have invoked the Islamic holiday’s history to further their agendas.

June 1, 2017

June 2, 2017 As Pyongyang, Washington and other regional players prepare for the prospect of war, North Korea’s nuclear program and ballistic missile capabilities have received undue amounts of attention. Important though they may be, they have less bearing on how the war will be fought than does North Korea’s conventional military.

Eliminating Pyongyang’s nuclear capabilities would be the first objective in a war, and indeed the justification for an attack. The second objective would be to protect South Korea from North Korean retaliation. No one really knows the true status of Pyongyang’s nuclear program, but a nuclear strike on a U.S. asset or ally is unlikely because it would force the U.S. to respond in kind, wiping out the North Korean regime.

North Korea will instead rely on its large arsenal of conventional weapons – namely artillery – to retaliate. The artillery batteries, many of which are located near the demilitarized zone, can severely damage heavily populated areas in and around Seoul.