"I try to explain to the Americans — if we have to go into North Korea, it is not going to be like going into Iraq or Afghanistan. He said the Kim dynasty had created such a cult in North Korea, where citizens are indoctrinated, that ridding the country of the family would be less like deposing the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and more like trying to remove Allah in Muslim countries. "I said to my team: Can you imagine what that would look like? Chun is also a former national security adviser to South Korea's President Moon Jae-in when he was running for office. Chun first gained prominence in South Korea in 1983 as a young lieutenant when he was credited with saving the life of a senior South Korean general during a terrorist bombing in Burma. Later, he became one of the most senior contact points for U.S. military commanders in South Korea. "It's very good to see you here representing the great Commonwealth," Tugendhat told Downer. He said North Korea's latest missile test in November indicated it has an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of striking the U.S. mainland, including Washington, D.C. 
 
 "But that’s assuming it only has a 150kg warhead," Chun said. The North Koreans do not really have that capability, and this is where the window still exists for them to cease. When asked by Fairfax Media if the first talks in two years signalled any material change, Chun said his 39 years of military experience had taught him that South Korea needed to be ready because often the only proven pathway to peace is war.
– For anyone encouraged by North Korea's slight softening toward the South, Chun In-bum essentially dumps a bucket of cold water it. The retired South Korean general, who the Financial Times reports led his country's special forces, spoke to a London-based think tank Wednesday and outlined exactly what American forces would encounter should we decide to bloody the country's nose—or something more significant. He doesn't mince words: "I try to explain to the Americans—if we have to go into North Korea, ... it’s not going to be like toppling [Saddam) Hussein]. This would be more like trying to get rid of Allah." He describes the country as "one huge barracks" and the population as militarized far beyond the [West's] imagination. "A 14-year-old child in North Korea probably gets more than 100 hours of military training a year," the Times of London quotes Chun as saying. "By age 14, a child knows how to fire an AK47, fire an RPG, throw a grenade, pitch a tent and march 24 hours." And even things that may seem promising on their face—the North's estimated 1,000 fighter jets are aged—aren't, per Chun, who says those planes would be used kamikaze-style, USA Today reports. And there's not just the physical battlefield to contend with, per the Brisbane Times: "North Korean cyber capability is right below nuclear capability in terms of threat," says Chun. He also describes an extreme system designed to root out any dissent, whereby the country's families are grouped in units, and if one person "misbehaves, the entire five or 10 families go to the gulag or are executed. So everybody spies on everybody else."