Although North Korea's military looks strong on paper and in annual parades like the one shown above, its real-world fighting capabilities are much more constrained. South Korea's defense ministry estimates that the North has about 820 fighter jets, but not enough fuel to conduct drills or even patrol its own airspace. North Korea's air defenses, considered to be the densest in the world, are also hopelessly antiquated against modern U.S. and South Korean aircraft.

North Korea's tanks wouldn't fare much better. They outnumber South Korean tanks almost two-to-one, but any sustained conflict would favor the South's modern armor over the North's obsolete Soviet models. And, as with its air force, the economically-isolated regime lacks the fuel reserves to operate all of its armored divisions at full strength for long periods of time.