[neverevergiveup]

Hopefully, behind closed doors, we are telling China: 1) Any nuclear attack by North Korea will be interpreted as an attack by China, and will lead to a full scale retaliatory defensive strike against China along with North Korea - no debate, without question. 2) If China does not work with us to stop Kim, we will have no choice but to support the nuclear armament of Japan and South Korea. 3) We are prepared to start an all-out trade war, with immediate tariffs and draconian restrictions on imports, 4) We will view any complicity of China with North Korea as justification for immediate invalidation of all US debt to China.

[morphing libertarian]

any solution that leaves Kim in charge of nuclear weapons is too dangerous to the US.

[laplata]

You make very good points and this could easily lead to WW III. This time the continental United States will suffer.

[neverevergiveup]

By linking retaliation to any attack by North Korea to China (i.e. we retaliate against China as well as North Korea), we essentially turn the North Korean threat into a Chinese threat - and thus things become no different today or tomorrow than they were 1 year ago, 5 years ago, or 20 years ago. Linking North Korea and China in this way makes it no different than the mutually assured destruction situation we had with China since they acquired nuclear weapons. It essentially tells China - “If you don’t control your dog, and it bites us, we will kill it and you”. We should do exactly the same with Russia and Iran.