Well I've read somewhere that the Korean War is a proxy war between china and USA. If NK was wiped out, it should (historically) go back to SK. SK is supported by USA. If Korea is united under the current SK government, then China has no buffer between USA and its own border. China is already going nuts with USA "interference" in SK (THAAD system and all that).
nebula_chi (09-27-2017)
Yes, but there is the issue that China exports quite a lot more to the USA than to any other country. And the USA also has another easy out to China through Japan, and the Japanese and Chinese have never been on particularly good terms. I just have the feeling that China could manage a more direct border with the USA if there wasn't the threat that their front door wasn't going to be the target of nuclear retaliation.
There's just too many factors, and too much danger on all sides to let North Korea go unchecked forever. Eventually it has to be dealt with before the nuclear options rolls onto the table.
Eh this subject is almost funny.
First thing first - there is no ww3 coming because the current axis of evil is too weak, there could easily be a world catastrophe with 1m-2m dead, it's not world war level.
Also you can't look at north korea and scream ww3, they are not advancing alone.
Currently China has no will or much to gain from supporting NK in a global war, I actually find it very hard to believe they will intervene much, they are going to try and take advantage of the war but likely via annexing lands from a losing side.
Russia on the other hand can easily find the will to be invested in this.
Russia has a very annoying friend called the Islam, primarily Iran and Syria but also armed groups everywhere, most notably Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, that's a list of countries that may get cooped in favor of a radical muslim group, because that's their majority anyway.
Turkey also stands to profit from an internal Arab conflict.
The major forces against leadership swaps in the middle east are Saudi Arabia and of course Israel, both will become the primary targets of said armed forced as soon as a quick coop hits.
The internal opposition being the egyptian army which could easily just flip sides if it seems fitting and the king of Jordan which is a minority in a Palestinian majority country (#Jordan is Palestine)
I think with the europeans in general, their armies are tiny at this point and will only act as support. (eh tiny of course as compared to the fact that Germany for instance used to be able to go toe to toe with the entire world, and UK was quite formidable too, completely disregarding all the others, but again even that when compared to Russia, NK and the Muslim world is plenty, it's just that I doubt they'll mobilize enough force to have history remember what they did)
So the way I see it this global war has a bunch of fronts:
1. Korea-Korea where the south will take a massive amount of casualties and will, via the power of the US have the ability to take down NK, which will also suffer a massive amount of casualties, this will trigger Russia to help NK to no avail and may trigger China to attempt to annex NK as a 'temporary agreeable solution' since they are 'friendly' which may result in NK becoming part of China until a revolution occurs dozens of years from now.
2. Russia and Turkey will seize the day, Russia will try to capture parts of eastern europe they figure are theirs, and we all saw how much US cares about that with Ukraine so no I suspect US will not intervene there with anything but weapon shipments, The western euros might but very little, this is a front without many casualties, anything can happen, they may be kicked out of Ukraine or Ukraine may be no more, who knows.
For Turkey this is a great chance for their dictator/totally-democratic-ruler to finally try to move the Arab world under his wings, he will 'save' Lebanon and Syria from their mess by taking their lands away, Syria will likely be split between Turkish control and Iran's control, this will force Israel's hand into attacking the Iran-Turkey front, Jordan and Egypt and the terrorist Falstine will either stay out or face Israel, not by military but their usual missile tactics, claiming it's not about the majority, it's just terrorists. Saudi Arabia and Iran will resolve some conflicts take some lands from countries around them, no one really cares because those are all Muslim countries anyway.
At that point US may bother with bombing Iran just to help both Israel and Saudi Arabia and claim they won all by themselves, but more likely than not they will sell billions of dollars of weapons to Israel and Saudi Arabia just to milk it first.
Iran will use this opportunity to activate sleeping cells in the entire western Europe, the crying baby euros will freak out over 2000 dead or something and try to force the war to end.
Now knowing Israel, we won't use this once in a lifetime chance to banish the Falstinian problems, ending with around 2000 dead we'll call this a huge defeat blablabla
Iran-Turkey will agree to a ceasefire, feel victorious with about 300k dead on all fronts and everyone will calm their butts down.
Aftermath: Turkey grows east, Iran tries growing west but blocked, Saudi Arabia wins a couple of fights in the region without territorial change, Russia gets a couple acres around east Europe, NK gone, now under Chinese ownership, Syria shrinks becomes new-Syria, Lebanon stays free but is a coop makes Iran the actual owners, Jordan and Egypt calm down the messes and return to current situation
SK may have been nuked, most casualties are there, nothing was really gained for them, US sells lots of weapons good for them, Israel somehow to blame and all is well in the world.
Pretty much how I see this plays out, not enough dead to be a world war, most deads in Muslim countries where their life don't matter anyway.
Edit: of course this is a what if US bombs them, otherwise 20 years in the future both Iran and NK, possibly multiple other Muslim countries too in order to 'stay in the game' all have nuclear capabilities, Russia probably finds an excuse to get more territory somewhere anyway, the Muslim world swaps leaders like 10 more times in order to get even more radical ones, they gain political power in Europe allowing them to demand territories, possibly receive some, causing a wave of Nationalism from the young Europeans and that seems like a much more suitable baseline for a real world war.
Kim isn't as unreasonable as you think, he knows he hold US by the balls thanks to Clinton and Bush's incompetence, he knows that's how US folds, he knows a lot of countries would never do a thing under the risk of a nuke, especially for another country and he knows that in general the US has a long long record of only intervening after its attacked in any way but selling weapons.
He is just trying to get the best deal plausible for him when some folks come over and beg him not to shoot.
This actually also allows him to start thinking about advancing into SK, because honestly I am not sure they'll fight all that much back and for sure no one is helping them if NK can reach nuke-the-west-coast capabilities.
Japan might intervene but it's been a while since they were a real threat to anyone.
Honestly he'll likely grab a few kilometers call it a win and everyone will move on with it.
This is just what happens when you trust the US to deal with your enemy's nukes, a very bitter lesson for SK that at some point will force a korea-korea war, and one side has nukes and the other doesn't.
Last edited by OakTree; 08-07-2017 at 05:27 AM.
Mama Bear (08-15-2017),Mophead(08-19-2017),nebula_chi (09-27-2017)
That's an interesting POV there Oak. In general, I agree. A world war will not happen; major wars however may. IMO NK will not be allowed to get nuke-capable. Especially with Trump as the world leader, lol. Question is what reaction will there be after the US hits NK; there's probably going to be a US-SK cooperation there, and the rest of the world will just watch. As an Israeli, I highly doubt any of the muslim countries will seek trouble anytime soon, especially how now most of them got some sense with regards to Qatar and their terror funding..
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@(you need an account to see links) - NK already has nukes thanks to Clinton and Bush dealing with NK just like Obama dealt with Iran.
The only question is how long before the nukes can be armed on missiles that can hit Japan or the US.
As it sits though, SK can be hit by a nuke at any given moment which is why they beg for help because at this point you can assume their military should be technologically way better than NK and they should be able to take NK down.
But who would invade a country that can nuke?
I mean other than Arabs of course.
Also sorry but Iran loves their Qatar terror base and is in control of groups everywhere in the Middle East and virtually controls Syria, Lebanon and Falstine thus by proxy have huge influence in Jordan and Egypt too although only secondary to current leaderships, so except another rocket rain as soon as Iran finds it suitable.
Also.. Don't count on Trump or any other US president, the US always does what is best for them and that's not always what's best for their allies, learn from SK's case.
nebula_chi (09-27-2017)
Wars cost too much lives and moneys.
The situation in South Korea is terrifying
Honestly I'd rather see the ground swallow up that whole bloody country.