Quote:
Originally Posted by mapuc
Most important-I truly hope they will find a peaceful solution.
(I know I'm a dreamer)
If the first shot is fired the situation could in the worse case, escalate very very fast within hours instead of 1-2 day or days.
It can goes from a local showdown to a would-out showdown within hours
That's why it's so important to find a peaceful solution. A war shall always be the last outcome in a crisis.
Markus
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There are a lot of unknowns in this situation, if the US does launch a limited conventional strike and does not aim for a decapitation strike or target the nuclear weapons where they are stored, then Kim Jong-un may decide on a limited conventional retaliation against US bases in the ROK, Japan or Guam.
It's very much a game of bluff, like most nuclear confrontations, neither side wants to use them but if they don't use them when they said that they would then it undermines the deterrent effect of the weapons. Not to mention that given the knife-edge political theatre of the DPRK if KJU showed too much weakness then he'd suffer a 7mm brain hemorrhage and someone else would take over, potentially his sister puppeted by the generals.
One has to remember that Kim is stuck between the US on one side, and his own generals on the other. When Kim Jong-il took control after Kim Il-sung died back in the 1990s, one of the first things he had to do was put down a military coup. Fast forward to the last days of Kim Jong-il and what do you see, the Cheonan incident and the shelling of Yeonpyeong island, not to mention more than a few purges in the DPRK military, all attempts by KJU to solidify his control over the military. Now I'm sure that many shed no tears for Kim Jong-un, but I'm not so convinced that a) a civil war is healthy for the Korean peninsula and eastern Asia as a whole, and b) that there is no risk that whatever replaces Kim Jong-un won't be even worse than him.
So yeah, I'm a dreamer with you right here, but both sides have pushed forward this escalation, and neither side are willing to take the embarrassment that de-escalating it would result in, so slowly but surely on this road, we're all heading for one place.