09-24-2017, 01:56 AM
(09-23-2017, 05:10 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: What will the highly nationalistic and xenophobic people of China
think? Will they suddenly love the US for taking out the Kim regime
and his nuclear missiles? Hardly. They'll be furious about what
happened, and they'll be spreading rumors about how the South Koreans
and the Americans are jointly planning an attack on China. They'll
demand that their leaders prepare for war with the US.
I would expect them to swallow their government's propaganda that your postulated Chinese invasion of a North Korea in civil disorder constituted a great military victory. That could still whet their appetite for more victories, I suppose.
Quote:This is the optimistic scenario, and the tensions will be worse than
they are today. The Americans will refuse to withdraw from South
Korea, and with China in control of North Korea, the South Koreans
will be fearing an attack from China, and so they will not want the
Americans to withdraw. It's not war yet, but even the optimistic
scenario is solidly on the path to war.
You say this would be a different WW3 than the one we're headed for
now. Well I guess so, but I'm not sure what the difference would be.
Either way, it will lead to an all-out generational crisis war, with
every nuclear weapon in the world used on someone before the war ends.
The difference is that the danger is more predictable, since there are fewer nuclear players involved. I suppose you could argue that we'd be better off with more, smaller players, in the hopes that the initial nuclear exchanges don't involve us, or at least don't involve an immediate war with the other Teller Ulam powers. I suppose by that argument we should be encouraging places like Georgia and Ukraine and Taiwan to get nuclear weapons, with the intent of taking them away again if we're still the global hegemon after the war.
