With US officials making regular mentions to a military solution in North Korea, the soaring tensions on the Korean Peninsula are growing even moreso in recent weeks, which has officials in both the US and China scrambling to prepare for the worst-case scenario, a nuclear war.
In China’s Jilin Province, which borders North Korea, the government has set up a series of refugee camps, anticipating an influx of fleeing civilians in the event of a US attack. More grimly, state-run media has also offered an instructional package on how to survive a nuclear blast.
China has long presented North Korea as a close ally, and beyond dealing with the fallout, perhaps literally, from a US-North Korea war, they could be dragged directly into the conflict against the United States, which has them warning the US not to do anything too hasty.
For the US part, officials seem to be publicly downplaying the potential consequences of the war, and talking up their willingness to go that route. Whether this is a bargaining strategy, or simply reflects a lack of realism over what a new Korean War would entail remains to be seen, though analysts have suggested millions would be killed, and the Trump Administration shows no sign of being particularly averse to that.
Potential consequences of war are broader than US commentary usually sees. For example, China might very well attack Taiwan, and just get that over with while the US is busy in Korea, using the US example as justification.
Other consequences are nuclear attack on Japan and South Korea. Bringing that down on them would alienate those places from the US for a very long time.
This war will unlikely be nuclear, once the USA takes the preemptive solution strategy. N Korea hasn’t got a weaponized missile for Nukes yet and won’t have one for a long time.
What they do have is a large standing army, chemical weapons, 5000 artillery and 1000 missiles aimed at S Korea, plus 50 years of preparations.
Once the war starts China will not abandon N Korea since “they are next” and it is best to fight the proxy war in Korea.
Meanwhile Russia and Iran will consolidate power in Syria and Iraq.
The American economy will melt down and the USA will have no allies in this war unless you count Saudi Arabia and Israel.
There won’t be any “worst” if USA doesn’t start a war.
Yeah, it’s not like we couldn’t prevent the “worst” from happening.