What Will Happen If . . . ?

[Guest fountainhall]

Sorry about the title being similar to a thread I just posted on the gay thailand Board. But after just having heard more experts on TV yet again assuring us all that the North Korean dictator is merely bluffing and the present crisis is just another storm in a teacup, albeit a more violent one than before, what might happen if something goes wrong with the calculations and a missile is not only launched but hits a population centre in South Korea, Japan or elsewhere?

 

Since the last crisis, the dynamics of the region have changed quite dramatically. Most of the regional key players have new leadership in place. The present Kim has to prove himself to the army who hold the power in his Kingdom and keep his brothers away from the throne. He has insulted China, up till now his country’s greatest ally, and the new Chinese leadership has been quick to express its displeasure and, for probably the first time ever since the Korean War, its concern. President Xi said on Sunday –

 

“No one should be allowed to throw a region and even the whole world into chaos for selfish gain,”

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/08/world/asia/from-china-a-call-to-avoid-chaos-for-selfish-gain.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

 

The US wants China to get tougher with its neighbour, but from its own domestic political viewpoint, the last thing China wants is to destabilize the Korean Peninsula. It wants the North as a buffer zone. If it gets really tough, the outcome might just be the collapse of the North and a unified Korea with nuclear capability and a staunch ally of the US right on its doorstep.

 

President Park Geun-hye in South Korea is also new to her job. Like her predecessor, she is a conservative hawk. Yet, whatever her own political thinking, her father was a hard-line military strongman dictator who seized power in a coup and ruled for 18 years before being assassinated in October 1979 by the head of his own Korean CIA. 5 years earlier, Park’s mother had been shot dead by a North Korean agent. How much baggage is she carrying into her job?

 

Even in Japan, it’s a relatively new government that has already shown economically it will take dramatic steps to protect itself. Whoever would have thought the ¥ would be allowed to drop anywhere near 26% against the US$ in just 6 months, with all the effect this is likely to have on imports to the US and other countries. Its missile defenses will all be primed for launch as someone’s finger rests on the button.

 

And so, what happens if . . . ? Will it be the result as before with North Korea getting a ticking off, then lots more aid and a return to the status quo? Or Is the region likely to be in for much more dramatic changes, one way or the other?

[pong]

IMHO the Obama scenario re OBLaden: they (US+allies) already have the drones or un-manned planes and know all the spots in NoKo and just send them off-preferably from Guam, maybe Okinawa. And have a clear hit on this Disney loving just 30 yrs old and still a teenage in hismindset dictator. Those who he now treis to impress-all the 1000s of older generals with Sputnik caps, will be immensely relieved to have gotten rid of such a mindsick kid.

Or (when i use my reasonable and human-living thinking); They find him, carry him in another binLaden lookalike heli and drag him off to a place where he can be judged by that International Court for deeds against humanity-as the NoKo's always do-also those by his family, pa, grandpa, etc.-for starving a few million of his people.

But what will then happen is likely more mindboggling and frightening- how the Chinese will react and how the Korea's will reunite-quite different from that in Germany. Fodder for psychologists-how to unwash a brainwashed whole country.

[Guest scottishguy]

The LAST thing we need is the USA throwing its weight about yet again and starting what would be another illegal war - assuming NK does not actually strike first.

 

The last couple of experiences show it tends not to end well - and whilst it might enable US Presidents and their allies to strut on the world stage, it leaves hundreds of thousands of combatants and civilians dead.

 

As Churchill said "Jaw, Jaw is better than War,War"