South Korea will likely react to North Korea's upcoming nuclear test with its own show of force, but the risk of Chinese retaliation and triggering another war with Pyongyang will limit how far Seoul can go in its response. Late last month, South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) said it expected North Korea to conduct a nuclear test between Oct. 16 and Nov. 7. It's highly unlikely that South Korean authorities would have made this timeline public if they weren't extremely confident in their intelligence and had a response prepared. Since the test hasn't occurred yet, it's widely expected to happen within the next two weeks per the NIS timeframe. North Korea has not tested a nuclear weapon since it began a self-imposed moratorium on such tests in 2017 amid increased outreach to South Korea and the United States. But while notable, the restarting of North Korean nuclear tests does...
