They can see it as an opportunity to stabilize their control of the region and cement good will with us… or they can see it as a good excuse to end the world. That’s what I’d imagine, but then I’m not China.
Still, if a nuclear bomb goes off as an attack on any major nuclear power, the end of all life as we know it seems like one very real possibility in a set of possibilities.
Direct immediate action on their part gives them control, stability, one less regular headache and… we’d owe them.
There could be a silver lining if the North nuked anything. The long-term outcome would be unification of both Koreas under UN and/or US jurisdiction. Think of how peaceful and successful Japan became after the US occupation, and apply that to Korea.
China would view nuclear retaliation by the US as our willingness to end the world. How is 20 million starving refugees pouring across their border stability? They are banking on maintaining the status quo, even if it means expecting the US to not retaliate with nuclear weapons. If the US nukes North Korea, I think that would result in a catastrophe, with US assets in the region being targeted by China with their nuclear arsenal. US military bases in South Korea, Japan and the Philippines would be likely targets.
You’ll need to knock off the many victims of the nuclear strikes, and the many millions who won’t be able to reach the borders through lack of food and water.
So, are we assuming NK just has one nuke, and/or that any others could be located and destroyed by conventional forces before Kim could hit any more cities, or use them tactically against attacking conventional forces? And what about the existing NK chemical warfare stocks?
NBC weapons make a fascinating force multiplier—especially if you’re using them against an opponent that can’t or won’t respond in kind, or on an ally’s behalf.
I’d also wonder about Kim’s mindset—is he being an “irrational actor,” attacking because he’s crazy or stupid or deluded, or would he actually be completely rational if he deduced that his opponent would “blink,” and he wouldn’t be nuked in retaliation? Is it just a matter of a stopped clock being right twice a day, or would he just be forseeing a variety of outcomes, bloody as they might be, that he was still prepared to accept, or he’d actually consider some kind of “gain”? Or maybe he just likes to gamble?
Bah…in the end, though, just a lot of guesswork. “If it can’t be expressed in figures, it is not science; it is opinion.” It really needs good experimental data, and some decent simulation work.
We WOULD respond with about 2,000 cruise missiles, another few thousand aircraft sorties and all the short ranged missiles we can field. We’d probably wear out the A-10’s stationed over there buzz-cutting their front line artillery and troops.
Ok, so let’s day 50% mortality rate. That’s still 6 million refugees. Still not something the Chinese are going precipitate with disabling strike on Pyongyang.
The use of N. Korean nuclear weapon on S. Korea, Japan, or the USA means THE END of N. Korea as an independent state. Maybe not by nuclear weapons (only possible option for them would be a tactical nuke if we were sure there was others and/or a launch point). But certainly all of the above.
And yes, China would be concerned. But if our (and S. Korea’s and Japan’s and Russia’s and Europe’s) diplomats haven’t made that perfectly clear to the Chinese government, then they haven’t been doing their job (IMHO).
And also IMHO, as I’ve stated before, before the nuclear cloud has dissipated, President Obama (or whoever his successor is) is on the phone with the Chinese Premier say, in effect: “We’re taking out N. Korea. Nuclear weapons used by them have killed or maimed hundreds of thousands, and they are done. But we know of your sensitivities on that border, which led to so much bloodshed in the 1950’s, and we want to work with you in assuring that there are no misunderstandings between us. We will also offer help with the probable refugee crisis that is coming. But make no mistake; N. Korea, by using nuclear weapons, is beyond the pale and we will end them.”
Another reason why this is not going to happen is that China would do everything in their power to stop it. North Korea does not have a nuclear missile fuelled and ready to go in a hardened silo. Their missiles which may not even be capable of carrying a nuclear war head, are liquid fuelled and launch preparations are obvious. I’d also be reasonably certain that China still has spies inside North Korea that would know about this in advance.
China is already pissed at NK, they have joined in on international sanctions for the first time. If NK did start prepping a missile with a nuclear warhead this is what I believe would happen.
a) China would bluntly tell them to stop immediately
b) China would inform the US of the location of the missile allowing the US to carry out cruise missile or F-22 / B-2 strikes
c) China would start amassing troops on the NK border
China gets no benefit from a war between NK and the south / US, but they would probably use their intervention as an excuse to ask for diplomatic concessions on other issues (South China Sea, Taiwan).
Interestingly today NK has warned it’s citizens that a famine may be coming:
The real danger is that the sanctions / famine pushs internal forces to stage a coup, then Kim starts a war with the south to try and unify the country behind him (blaming it on the south / US of course). At this stage I would hope he gets assassinated by his own army.
Certainly, but North Korean development of a solid-fueled missile and hardened silo is probably only a matter of time. Give it a decade or half a decade.
I don’t believe NK will exist in its current form for that long, or that the US would let them develop solid fuelled ICBM’s that can hit the US mainland. The current sanctions are crippling and if China keeps them imposed then its only a matter of time before NK implodes. I give the current NK regime 5 years more in power at the very maximum.
Haven’t people been saying this about North Korea for two decades now, since the 1994-1998 Arduous March famine? “Only a few more years.” “Only a few more years.” “Only a few more years.”
They’ve lost the support of China. This has never happened before.
They’ve even seized North Korean boats that were docked in Chinese ports. China might relent and lift the sanctions but if they don’t then I can’t see how NK can survive.
South Korea and the US forces at hand there take out North Korea while Trump keeps China pacified by trading the NK coal fields to China in exchange for branding the Ryugyong Hotel as Trump Tower North Korea.
