NK fires a ballistic missile over japan

mykonian · Post Post #14 (isolation #0) » Mon Sep 04, 2017 5:58 am

https://frontnews.eu/news/en/12285

I wonder how this whole situation is going to work out. And who's the real enemy.

mykonian · Post Post #17 (isolation #1) » Mon Sep 04, 2017 9:57 am

Put it this way: there's not going to be a war in North Korea. There's no economic gain to be made, and the costs would be huge. There's no option of skirmishing, this would be for all the marbles. To win, and occupy it, it's going to be worse than Vietnam, because you damn well know China is going to support a resistance to keep a US nation away from it's border, and the terrain is apparently appalling. This in a time where people still have Iraq and Afghanistan fresh in mind, you can't sell that to congress. You can't preemptively carpet nuke it either, which I'm sure some would love to consider, there's no way you can do that right in front of the Chinese eyes, have them deal with the fallout, etc. That's as close as committing to WW3 as you'll get without nuking Beijing. And you lose one ally for sure in the region, because in the end South Korea wants to unite, not have it's brother perish.

North Korea has played this game for 2 generations now, successfully. The same dynasty stays in power, they get placated with international help. It's nuclear blackmail, but paying is a lot cheaper than going to war for it. It's not even comparable, even ignoring the nuclear war option. I'd be very surprised if the world wouldn't pay up again. So pushing the issue like the US has done under Trump, who's it for? Is it to have a slightly better position on the negotiation table vs North Korea who's had the world pocketed for decades now, or is it vs China to imply that the US could be crazy too and it'd be a lot better for everybody involved if they could rein in North Korea a little in the near future?