The increasing likelihood of war in North Korea is disconcerting to say the least. This isn’t like blowing shit up in the middle east. We (the U.S.) can’t easily get away with it like we can with dropping MOABs out in Afghanistan. North Korea has several powerful neighbors that are linchpins of the global economy, major powers who will care very much what happens in their backyards.
Take South Korea. Presumably there will be talk of reunifying the peninsula under Seoul’s governance if we attack and topple the Kim regime. Even if the South is able to escape some type of devastating artillery attack on Seoul, it faces an epic humanitarian crisis in the North that potentially dwarfs even the disparities between East and West Germany at the time of reunification. The U.S. will be in for a pound and a half at that point, as the U.S. taxpayer will be expected to heavily contribute to rebuilding the North. We would be removing landmines from the DMZ for decades. That’s if everything goes swimmingly for us.
If everything does not go swimmingly for us, and South Korea is attacked, we could lose one of the most dynamic economies in Asia, and a key ally in the region. South Korea struggled for decades to become what it is today, and much of it could be wiped out in less than 24 hours.
Then we have Japan, the core of American power projection in the region. Japan has some interesting incentives in this situation that are not well-known among many Americans—Japan and Korea have a history. There is a considerable amount of mutual resentment stemming from Japan’s treatment of the Korean peninsula in the second world war, though it is of course more complicated than that. I will not venture to speculate regarding Japan’s true interest here, but it is not the same as our interest.
And, of course, there is that little country known as China. Who knows what side of all of this they come out on. China has woven a highly tangled international web that spans the globe. Regime change in Korea could end up costing us things that we do not now truly anticipate. I am certain, however, that there will be a price extracted on the U.S. beyond the cost of war, should China even allow us to topple the Kim regime. And the price will be steep.
This doesn’t even scratch the surface of the ripples that could extend throughout the globe, should the Trump administration move on North Korea militarily. I see no way out of this with a Trump administration that is perfectly willing to wag the dog (the WH political team basically runs everything these days), and looking for a confrontation.