Another conflict in Asia would involve air and naval power that is not being used in the Middle East and Central Asia, he said. But there would be more collateral damage because of the lack of precision bombs would require using less accurate gravity bombs and munitions.

North Korea's armed forces currently are stable and do not appear to be mobilizing for a conflict, he said.

“To my knowledge, the North Koreans' status of their armed forces is stable, meaning they haven't raised or lowered any particular parts of their readiness to cause any kind of alarm,” Pace told reporters.

Pace repeated his earlier judgment that he could not discern the threat posed by North Korean based on his definition that a threat is a combination of military capacity and intent.

North Korea’s military power is known with a “decent margin error,” including soldiers, tanks, aircraft, warships, he said.

“What is not knowable is the intent of the leadership in North Korea to use or not use that power at any given time,” Pace said. “And applying Western logic to the leadership in Korea is not something that I would personally want to bet my future on.”

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