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This has blown up to such an extent that I reckon it ought to have its own thread.

July 4 – North Korea tests an ICBM capable of hitting a number of US offshore territories including Alaska

July 28 – NK tests an ICBM capable of hitting the mainland US, reaching as far as Chicago

August 6 – NK threatens to turn US into "sea of fire" over sanctions

August 8 – President Trump threatens "fire and fury" against NK if further provocations are made, NK responds by announcing plans to attack Guam with "enveloping fire"

August 10 – NK affirms that it is moving forward with the Guam attack plan and that it will be ready "within days"

This is by far the furthest any US President has gone to confront North Korea. Unfortunately, the hermit kingdom is not backing down and now the two nuclear-armed states are in a cycle of escalation. How will this end, folks?

Poorly for the hermit kingdom.

We do not have confirmation they have minaturized their nukes to fit on those icbms as of now it is fairly certain that most if not all of the kim's miniscule stockpile is the classic dropped out a plane nuke.

With america's overwhelming capacity to secure air superiority a war right now will only turn nuclear if the north koreans detonate thier bombs on the ground.

Unless there's another tree incident or sabotage tunnel this is going to blow over like it always does. The status quo is the best situation for everyone in power here. South Korea gets to not have its mega-city shelled and doesn't have to kill its economy integrating the north. The US gets to avoid war while keeping international power. China gets to keep its buffer state, the DPRK regime their heads. North Korean populace is screwed as always, but there's going to be no overall movement here.

Honestly, if you're worried about war starting, look at Israel getting dragged into Syria or an expansion of the Ukraine war with Poland triggering NATO's self-defense treaties.

You know what could be useful right now?
Having diplomats in a government department that deals with foreign affairs try to defuse the situation through diplomacy so we don't end up causing an extinction.
…
…
Oh, right.
There are no diplomats to handle the crisis!!
"Deconstruct the administrative state" my ass…

North Korea is notorious for going to meetings with diplomats to discuss situations and agree to do things differently but never actually do anything differently. I'm fairly sure that if they did send diplomats to Korea that they would've worked something out, but then the next day they'd continue testing as if nothing happened.

Honestly I sort of feel like Kim Jong Un is really just trying to make a statement of "don't fuck with me or I'll nuke you." I mean we were sketchy at this point about taking his regime out, with his close proximity to South Korea, but now that he has a nuclear device, it'd be insane to attempt to actually take him out in any way without completely deconstructing his entire dynasty and regime really quickly (which would be almost impossible).

He's using this nuke less to attack America and more to protect himself and his fantasy empire.

Experts think that it's quite likely that they've successfully miniaturized a nuke (look up the "disco ball" photograph with Kim Jong Un), but it's also true that the balance of power is such that attacking Guam would be suicidal. I doubt NK will make the first move here; what's interesting is what the US will do given that tensions have never been intentionally pushed to this point before. Lindsey Graham was making the rounds recently arguing that a preemptive strike on NK would be worth the casualties in East Asia because it would spare Americans; and given Trump's own words, it looks like there is support for further escalation at the very top.

Reminder they still don't have a working reentry vehicle. They can launch a nuke at Guam, but the best they'll get is some radioactive debris landing nearby.

I blame the Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty for all this. What an absolutely stupid thing that was. Whoever thought it was a good idea to ban ballistic missile defenses because they were worried about some bizarre Metal Gear escalation should be the first ones the new system is tested on.

I do find it amusing that North Korea's rhetoric is being thrown back at them for once, even if the navy seal copypasta does involve nukes this time.

the Incredible Talking Mare said:

How will this end, folks?

If North Korea is actually suicidal, China will step in with a coup to prevent their buffer zone from turning into Chernobyl. If not, it'll end like every other time they've tried to stir things up. There'll be a bunch of talk and grandstanding, some sabre rattling and UN sanctions (we're at this stage), we'll do some grand military exercise, then it'll be forgotten again until North Korea wants more attention and detonates another test nuke, kicking it all off again. Rinse and repeat three dozen more times until China finally gets fed up with it and just accepts having a buffer zone isn't worth all the crap.

If North Korea is actually suicidal, China will step in with a coup to prevent their buffer zone from turning into Chernobyl.

Is this before or after NK launches on Guam?

@the Incredible Talking Mare
Before. China probably has a lot of insiders in NK, so they'd get a heads up--probably not a very long one--if shit was about to hit the fan. That's why Kim Jong Nam was assassinated. He was China's main backup plan.

If they did attack Guam, I doubt China would be able to salvage things. There'd be retaliatory nuclear strikes on all of NK's military positions (why waste US soldiers on an invasion when they already triggered MAD?), including probable multi-megaton strikes on any hardened underground installations.

At that point, China might step in to try and pick up the pieces, but I'd guess we'd tell them to fuck off and do reunification.

The Atlantic's article on this dealt with both possibilities.

First of all, we don't know anything about China's infiltration of the North Korean elite. Given Kim's mass purging – something around 140 top officials – we can assume that very few if any agents survived the death of Kim Jong-il. Assuming that they did have agents inside, though, it is highly unlikely that a coup would end well. Consider the two ways it could end "successfully" – either the capture or assassination of Kim Jong-un. The former would be extremely unlikely given Kim's fanatical dedication to security, which only leaves the possibility of some kind of a suicidal attempt on his life. However he almost certainly has a contingency plan in place that may result in launching on Seoul and Tokyo. Even if he doesn't, the reverence of the country's population (in particular its military) toward him may result in what the Atlantic describes as an "automatic" military response in the event of his death. So even if a coup goes well, and that's assuming a coup is possible at all, it would be an enormous gamble.

At that point, China might step in to try and pick up the pieces, but I’d guess we’d tell them to fuck off and do reunification.

China won't allow reunification to happen because it would mean a US-friendly border nation. After the unprecedented refugee crisis subsides it's likely that NK will mostly remain an irradiated no man's land.

I am just gonna leave this here, take from it what you will but it basically sums up how I feel. USA needs to learn to mind their own business and stop trying to change and control other nations. Their constant wars and actions on other countries has done nothing good and has only ever made things worse.

>US or US alley ship or plane sinks/crashes near North Korea due to unknown/unspecific reasons.
>US blames NK for doing it and declares war
>China think NK didn't do it so they see the US as the ones attacking first
>China declares war on US
>World War starts

happened once before, it'll happen again.

You'd think this would be common knowledge by now…

Can't stand America bullying a small, poor country for no reason. Hopefully based Kim manages to lead his people through this. There's still hope for the future though. When China finally becomes the next superpower the world will enter an era of peace and prosperity.

A Chinese state-owned newspaper has said that China would remain neutral if NK attacked first, but would intervene (Korean War 2: This Time, It Won't Be Forgotten) if the US attacked first.

Could be a bluff to get Un to eat a Snickers and calm down, or they could finally finally be getting fed up with their buffer state.

@Asura, the Emperor
I'd recommend actually looking into the Korean War and not relying on a youtube video. For example, the war began when North Korea invaded South Korea with the intent of forcibly unifying the two states under communism. The UN declared the invasion illegal and launched a "police action." The end goal was not to unify the peninsula, but merely restore South Korea.

When NK imploded, they decided to nip the whole issue in the bud and unify (given what NK's become, I don't think you could argue it was a terrible idea), which caused China's intervention that led to the current borders.

NRA TV is asking North Korea to bomb California.
I wish I was making this up. :(

At the end of the article, the NRA TV host apologized
But apologized as a "It was a joke bruh"

Edit: lmao even his followers are against him

China is dependent on the US economically. They literally cannot afford to go to war with us.

^ should note that the US is about equally dependent on trade with China. It's a MAD situation in more ways than one.

Trump is threatening NK and China is defending NK. These obviously aren't rational people.

China has basically stated that if NK attacks first that they are not going to help them. North Korea has very little economic value, has antagonized the whole world, and is woefully under-equipped to fight one of the major world powers.

At this point I'm fairly certain the only reason China is allied with North Korea at all is that they share borders and they would rather avoid any kind of conflict.

I hate to think like this, but sometimes I just want NK to do it so we can get this over with, one way or the other.

I'm not so sure that NK will actually attack. One of the major reasons that the country has survived up to this point is that they never had the balls to actually back up their talk. The Kim regime is evil and stupid but not to the point of suicide. My guess it that NK is trying to provoke someone into doing something so that they can have China's support, which is vital for any military conflict that Un wants.

I feel this has, and will always, sum up my feeling about North Korea.

Just add another giant off-screen stopping the US from stomping NK.