Here's the kind of damage North Korea could do if it went to war

Tensions spiked between North and South Korea over the weekend following a string of escalations that started with a North Korean landmine seriously injuring two South Korean soldiers on August 4.

On August 20, the Koreas exchanged artillery fire along their de-militarized zone, although no one was reported injured. This was followed by North Korea has ordering its front-line troops onto a war footing in a drastic raise in tensions.

Tensions relaxed on Monday, following a North Korean apology for the landmine, but also dropped 70% of its submarine fleet off radars.

The entire episode shows just how precarious the situation remains between the Koreas. In the event of a war, North Korea would likely be overthrown by the combined forces of South Korea and the US, but not before Kim Jong Un and his military would be able to do some serious damage to its southern neighbor.

Harry J. Kazianis, writing for The National Interest, notes that the Kim regime has five weapons that could cause mass fatalities and sow extreme panic throughout South Korea and even possibly the US.

Firstly, Kazianis notes that Pyongyang could potentially use dirty bombs against South Korea. North Korea is known to have dug tunnels beneath the demilitarized zone that divides the peninsula.

North Korean operatives could sneak through the tunnels carrying the materials necessary to plant dirty bombs in major cities throughout the South.

Additionally, Kazianis writes, North Korea could simply place raw nuclear material on a short range rocket bound for Seoul. Even if inaccurate, the weapon would still cause mass panic.

Secondly, North Korea could also bring to bear chemical and biological weapons against South Korea. The Nuclear Threat Initiative notes that Pyongyang likely has the third largest stockpile of chemical weapons on the planet, including various nerve agents.

Additionally, a North Korean defector to Finland brought 15 gigabytes of data that showed Pyongyang tested chemical and biological agents upon its own citizens.

North Korea has also released images that shown Kim Jong Un touring the Pyongyang Bio-technical Institute that is intended to produce fertilizer. However, numerous weapons experts alleged that the facility is likely a cover and can instead produce anthrax on a military level.

The third extremely dangerous weapon that North Korea could use in a war would be a nuclear strike against Alaska or Hawaii. The success of any strike is a definite long shot, Kazianis notes, but it could be increasingly plausible in the coming decades.

North Korea has spent tremendous capital on both its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and, in the event of a nuclear strike, the success would not be measured by the number of casualties as much as by the success of a strike and the mayhem it could cause.

In April, Adm. Bill Gortney, the general in charge of North American Aerospace Defense Command (Norad), said at a Pentagon news conference that "the ability to put a nuclear weapon on a KN-08 and shoot it at the homeland." However, Gortney did qualify his statement by saying that he was confident that US missile defense would be able to down any incoming North Korean missile before it struck.

Fourthly, North Korea could cause extreme damage against South Korea with simply with conventional artillery. The Kim regime has the world's largest artillery force, of approximately 10,000 active pieces, all of which are aimed directly at Seoul. Although a vast majority of these weapons may not function properly or be incapable of hitting Seoul due to lack of maintenance and their old age, the barrage is still enough to spread mass panic and cause a huge number of civilian casualties.

North Korea's last major lethal weapon, according to Kazianis, is its cyber military abilities. Little is definitively known about North Korea's cyber army and their capabilities. However, this army has proven extremely adept in the past.

The US has blamed and sanctioned North Korea for the massive hack of Sony in December 2014. Additionally, South Korea blamed Pyongyang for cyber attacks against a nuclear reactor in the country also during December 2014.

The fear is that as North Korea's cyber army becomes increasingly competent, they may decide to cripple South Korea's electrical grid or hack into various South Korean or US military installations.

Still, even with these potentially lethal weapons at its disposal, North Korea remains a hermit state. And, although Pyongyang may be able to deal substantial damage to South Korea in the opening salvos of a war, it would be highly unlikely that Pyongyang could win any military conflict given the staunch backing of South Korea by the US.