South Korea To Retaliate Against Its Hostile Northern Neighbor Should Things Escalate

Following the nuclear test that North Korea concluded last Friday that produced a 5.2 magnitude earthquake, the South is preparing itself to launch a major offensive assault against the North should worse come to worst.

Yonhap news agency, known to have close ties with the South Korean government, apparently has received a military source that if the South should retaliate the Pyongyang capital "will be completely destroyed by ballistic missiles and high-explosive shells."

Last Friday's nuclear test was North Korea's fifth this year and is the strongest blast that the country ever created. There are various measurements as to how powerful the impact bomb yielded. South Korea's military said that it was about 10 kilotonnes, while other measurements from neighboring countries said it was 20 kilotonnes or more.

To put into perspective, the bomb that the US dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 yielded a blast of 15 kilotonnes.

According to BBC's Korea correspondent, Steve Evans, there is growing criticism within South Korea that its attempt at slowing down the North in its nuclear program is utterly failing in preventing Kim Jong-un from furthering its alarming experiments.

Evans further said that the South's statement is echoing the North's chilling threats. South Korea's plan in attacking the North was revealed in parliament after the latest nuclear tests. Aside from actual assault, the South is also planning to resume its propaganda broadcast sometime in November, according to CNN.

Reports are also coming in that the US, Japan, and South Korea are looking into unilateral measures, bilateral measure, and a possible trilateral cooperation. As for the sanctions that the North will be facing, the US is still considering the path it will take, barring the ones that the UN Security Council, Japan, and South Korea will be enforcing.

But the North is shrugging these sanctions off similar to its response to the ones that have already been imposed on it in the past.  

"The Obama administration running around and talking about meaningless sanctions until today is highly laughable," state media said Sunday.

"We will continue to strengthen our nuclear power in quality and quantity to protect our dignity and the right to live as well as to ensure genuine peace from the increasing threat of a nuclear war by the United States."

Neighboring countries of North Korea are closely monitoring the situation's development hoping that some kind of civil discourse will be reach rather than settling in an all-out violence.