North Korea Backs Down

[Rahul]

What the hell can china do to defend North Korea aginast a sudden air strike by stealth aircraft, unless they pre-positioned a lot of assets in North Korea first?

They won't be able to stop a surprise attack in all likelihood.  But unlike North Korea, we really don't want to move toward war with China.  Even the trade being seriously affected between the two of us would send the entire planet into a recession, probably much worse than the  Great Recession.  I could easily see us losing some of our Naval ships in the South China Sea.  Actually we would be lucky if we only lost a few destroyers.  That would just be a way of them telling us they weren't very pleased with our actions.  That would be a minor reaction.

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Actually, now that I think of it. China would probably hit all of our bases in South Korea. Hit them hard.