China's strategy in Korean peninsula

Equation said:

Does the so called North Korean threat or chaos matches the drama that the US perceive? Let the two Koreans either stay separated or united to their own accord. Let North Koreans to advance their ballistic missiles test to further their defenses. The bottom line is North Korea such a "bad guy" like Sadam Hussein that needs to be badly contain or eliminated?

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Putting aside the legitimacy of US imposed regime change, I'd say Americans living on the West Coast, especially in high value targets like SFBA, Silicon Valley, and Los Angeles metro, are more concerned about DPRK nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic development than folks living in, um, let me pick a random city..., Houston. So yes, the nukes are threats, and Kim Jun-un shouldn't be allowed to develop long-range ballistic missiles. I know it's selfish, but the possibility of being vaporized makes the whole thing much more real for those of us living on the Left Coast.

Blackstone said:

Putting aside the legitimacy of US imposed regime change, I'd say Americans living on the West Coast, especially in high value targets like SFBA, Silicon Valley, and Los Angeles metro, are more concerned about DPRK nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic development than folks living in, um, let me pick a random city..., Houston. So yes, the nukes are threats, and Kim Jun-un shouldn't be allowed to develop long-range ballistic missiles. I know it's selfish, but the possibility of being vaporized makes the whole thing much more real for those of us living on the Left Coast.

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Korea is in the trade wind latitudes, which means prevailing wind blows from the east towards the west by south west. So I think it is much more likely for north central Chinese population centers to suffer from the nuclear fallouts of nuclear weapon usage on the Korean Peninsula than it is for North Korea to successfully nuke an population centers in Hawaii or North America.

In any case, if North Korea were to successfully nuke somewhere in North America, even if it misses all population centers, it is totally inconceivable for the US to not nuke North Korea back. Again northern Chinese population centers would be at risk for fall out.

Blackstone said:

Putting aside the legitimacy of US imposed regime change, I'd say Americans living on the West Coast, especially in high value targets like SFBA, Silicon Valley, and Los Angeles metro, are more concerned about DPRK nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic development than folks living in, um, let me pick a random city..., Houston. So yes, the nukes are threats, and Kim Jun-un shouldn't be allowed to develop long-range ballistic missiles. I know it's selfish, but the possibility of being vaporized makes the whole thing much more real for those of us living on the Left Coast.

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Yes but the US has a lot more nukes and ballistic missile than North Korea and NO they don't get to decide on North Korea's fate or even Iran for that matter. The world doesn't revolve around the US geopolitical rules.

Richard Santos said:

I think it is much more likely for northern Chinese population centers to suffer from the nuclear fallouts of nuclear weapon usage on the Korean Peninsula than it is for North Korea to successfully nuke an population centers in Hawaii or North America.

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So will Japan and parts of Russia. The Korean peninsula is not too far from them.

Prevailing wind blows in the wrong direction for nuclear fallout from Korea to seriously threaten Japan or Russia.

Richard Santos said:

Prevailing wind blows in the wrong direction for nuclear fallout from Korea to seriously threaten Japan or Russia.

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Yes but that depends on season and time of year as well. Prevailing winds also changes. As a result nuclear fall out is still a likely chance for both Japan and Russia.

Equation said:

Yes but the US has a lot more nukes and ballistic missile than North Korea and NO they don't get to decide on North Korea's fate or even Iran for that matter. The world doesn't revolve around the US geopolitical rules.

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Actually, the US does get to decide the fate of anyone whose fate it can seriously influence. The US had tremendous influence over the last century on the fates of even china and Russia.

Richard Santos said:

Actually, the US does get to decide the fate of anyone whose fate it can seriously influence. The US had tremendous influence over the last century on the fates of even china and Russia.

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But time has changed and so is the world. China has gain a lot of influences through out the world both economically and politically. The bottom line is that NO, the entire world did NOT gave the US the right to make that kind decision whether one likes it or not. That's why there's a lot of tensions going on with the US and the rest of the world. The old guard are still stuck on that Cold War mentality that they can't get out of.

Equation said:

Yes but that depends on season and time of year as well. Prevailing winds also changes. As a result nuclear fall out is still a likely chance for both Japan and Russia.

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Not as much as you think. This is why which direction weather fronts move is largely predictable in all seasons for most latitudes of the world. In the latitude around south china to north of Yalu, weather fronts usually move from east to the west. Further north, the prevailing wind moves in the other direction. If the jet streams comes unusually far south, then maybe northern Japan can catch some fallout from nuclear explosions in northern Korea. But most of the time, the trade winds blow across the whole Korean Peninsula from east by north east to west by south west, i.e. The region around Beijing and to the south will get hit.

AndrewS said:

I pointed out that there are 28,000 US soldiers plus their families in South Korea, who presumably would be on the receiving end of NK nukes. So obviously they would prefer non-nuclear NK.

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Those soldiers are there to keep South Korea as a satellite of US. Until 2015 the US president was Commander in Chief of the South Korean armed forces and in case of war he would resume that position which means that in fact the general commanding those US troops would become acting Commander in Chief.
Peaceful reunification would lead to the removal of the US forces however it is achieved. It would remove a threat to China. That is not yet acceptable to US however much it would be liked by the people living on the US West coast.