The US relies on its asian puppet colonies KUSA and Japan to act as meaningful proxies. KUSA is mostly filled with forced conscripts so judging from the IOF, they don’t look like to be an actual competant fighting force. Also in the event of war, military command goes to the US who, as we’ve seen in Ukraine and Occupied Palestine + Yemen, are so corrupt that it would be a liability so there is a possibility of refuseniks/mutinies in the KUSA army.
Artillery shells are pointed at seoul at all times and can wipe out the entire city in a matter of hours. This inevitably means that SK’s economy collapses as all the Chaebols and other assorted bourgeoisie flee and the entire country is militarized while the CIA controlled Korean government would spend all its time doing the classic slava Ukranian trick of kidnapping conscripts and whatnot.
The US backed NATO can’t join the conflict because of Comrade Kim Jong Un’s investment in nuclear ICBMs (Ukraine much?), inevitably, South Korea’s place in the global supply chain would be used as a threat to G7 and the global south to support the war while further isolating the US.
A war with the DPRK could be a flashpoint to a proletarian revolution in KUSA and a complete breakdown of Chaebols which is why the endlessly corrupt and cruel south korean government would never go to war unless the US forced then to (meaning that the Chaebols would know in advance, the optics of which could prove fatal to the rogue state of the ROK).
