North Korea's secret strategy slips out, and WHY they are developing a nuclear weapon capable of striking the USA

The nukes are a bargaining chip, the goal is to split the South Korea from the USA.

North Korea's strategy may have been revealed by Christopher Hill, the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia. According to Hill, who has experience in dealing with North Korea, their strategy is working, and the United States and South Korea are in a dangerous spot.

LOS ANGELES, CA (California Network) -- Kim Jong Un's dream is to unify Korea under his leadership. Despite the totalitarian dictator's youth, he knows that South Korea will never accept him without coercion, not after having tasted freedom and capitalism. The only way Kim Jong Un's dream can come true is by military force.

The North trains for this day. Nearly four million North Koreans are capable of military service with short notice. North Korean military equipment is antiquated, but it's kept in good repair, as much as spare parts and fabricated replacements are available. There's enough to get the job started. And then there's the artillery.

North Korea may have 500 guns and rocket launchers aimed at Seoul alone, just 35 miles south of its border. Most of these pieces are burrowed into tunnels and caverns prepared for the purpose of sheltering the pieces from spying eyes and counter-battery fire. The tactic is as effective as it would be primitive. Haul the gun out, fire a few rounds or an aimed salvo, haul it back into its shelter, wait for the enemy shells to land. Wash, rinse, and repeat as needed.

The North has a couple more assets. The first is secret tunnels under the border minefields, which can enable as many as 20,000 troops per hour to flood into the South, behind the lines. And of course, the North has nuclear weapons. Nobody knows how many, or just what capability the North enjoys, but prudence dictates those weapons could be deployed to exact a toll never seen since the end of World War II.

The North intends to use these capabilities. That's a fact.

If the North used these capabilities today, they could inflict tens of thousands of casualties, especially on the first day. Most of the victims would be South Koreans living in Seoul, caught unprepared for the bombardments that would flatten their neighborhoods and skyscrapers.

But allied retaliation would be swift and merciless. Once past the initial shock, allied airpower would turn the tide within a few days at most. The antiquated North Korean Air Force would be wiped out within a few hours. The North's supply lines would be interdicted. Tanks and trucks would come to a halt, troops would run out of ammunition. Deep-penetrating bombs would augment cruise missile strikes to decapitate the regime. If the leadership is not killed, it will at least be rendered ineffective.

Even a nuclear detonation would not save the regime at this point. Once on the offensive, the allies will not stop until North Korea is subjugated.

So how does the North solve this problem?

The key is the United States. While South Korean airfields could be incapacitated with chemical weapons strikes that would contaminate aircraft, the U.S. would be less vulnerable. Operating from Pacific bases and carriers, American airpower would be impossible to touch. Fighters with long range air-to-air missiles would clear the skies ahead of the bombers.

Behind the bombers would come the reinforcements and the power that will stop the North.

Therefore, to win, North Korea needs to separate the United States from the South. If the United States is out of the way, or at least much weaker in the region, the North's invasion can work.

This is the motivation behind the North's nuclear weapons program, and the secret strategy identified by Christopher Hill. By developing a nuclear weapon capable of striking the United States, the North gains a bargaining chip the U.S. cannot accept. This means it can be traded to force the U.S. to degrade its cooperation with the South. After all, North Korea doesn't want to nuke anything anymore than anyone else does. Why destroy what you want to have?

To this end, North Korea has just tipped its hand in India. The North's top envoy to India has just announced that his country would be willing to halt all nuclear development if the United States and South Korea will just stop holding joint exercises.

The joint exercises are how the two powers practice protecting South Korea from the North. And the North wants that practice to stop. According to the North, the exercises are practice for invasion, but every thinking person knows this is not the case.

What happens next comes down to how savvy the U.S. is, and how willing we are to call North Korea's bluff. North Korea is betting that neither the U.S., nor South Korea are willing to tolerate the massive casualties the North could inflict within the first few hours of a conflict. Unwilling to pay this price, the North can threaten its way to its goal. It's an old trick, one infamously used by the Nazis to gobble up bits of Europe before the world got wise to Hitler's tactics.

The odds are in North Korea's favor.

The South is terrified of what the North could do. They are so worried, they have even delayed the deployment of a defensive missile shield that could protect their capitol from a missile strike. And the U.S. is so weary of war, so afraid of casualties, that our leaders have repeatedly capitulated. Iraq and the War on Terror have been exceptions, made because we have been confident about our ability to make war on advantageous terms. No such terms will exist in North Korea.

It is time for the world to recognize the North's strategy and ambition. It must recognize that a pint of blood saved now will cost a gallon of it later.

The rogue North Korean state should be neutralized sooner rather than later. Neutralization may or may not involve Kim Jong Un and his regime. Who rules doesn't matter. What matters is that the North is no longer willing or able to strike its neighbor.

A peaceful outcome is no longer possible. It hasn't been for a very long time. This situation will end in war, the only question is, on what terms will the war be fought, ours or theirs?