North Korea launches ballistic missile across northern Japan, falls into sea

[Pat Mustard]

If WW3 starts..... I will TRY not to panic

I will also try not to have another mental breakdown! This scares the crap out of me

If WW3 happens a mental breakdown'll probably be your least worst option.

[Thumpalumpacus]

[...] I was stationed in South Korea for several months. There's enough scud type missles that'd be slung over the boarder into Seoul within the first few minutes of any strike that would take out several thousand South Koreans at least. [...]

Not to mention thousands of conventional artillery pieces.

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I think we should have a referendum about shooting nukes. Actually scrap that, there's enough Trump supporters to voter in favour.

Actually, there's not. There weren't the night he won the election, and that number has steadily shrank since then.

[Anomalocaris]

He would declare the outcome of referendum fake news and try to release the nukes anyway.  

He knows nothing else, but he has a sense that a rebuke by voters speaks ill of him.   His only goal in the White House is to pretend all words are about him and none of it speaks ill.  So if he advocate using nuke, he would never recognize much less abide by any referendum outcome that does not approve of his intention.

[Aoi Magi]

I don't understand why China is allowing NK to provoke the other nations like this... they need to pull back their tiny pet dictator or else they too will get caught up in the crossfire.

[Anomalocaris]

I don't understand why China is allowing NK to provoke the other nations like this... they need to pull back their tiny pet dictator or else they too will get caught up in the crossfire.

Having a nuclear capability that have demonstrated and universally recognized to be able to inflict unacceptable damage to the core interests of the United States, Japan and South Korea is vastly more important to Kim Jung Un than anything the Chinese can take away from him.

So China has no immediate leverage over North Korea when it comes to the regime's behavior in making sure it is clear it can nuke its enemies and will not be cowered from doing so if need be.

The only thing the Chinese can do to stop him would be to invade and occupy his country.   But If china does that Kim can fire a nuke at Beijing or Shanghai even more easily than he can hit Guam.   China is not going to trade one of its own cities to make it easier for America to uphold its influence in China's own backdoor.   Also the Chinese are pleased North Korea is making a fool of trump just as trump is threatening to tear up the basis of trade between china and the US, and the Chinese are also pleased it is the North Korean people who are bearing the burden of and being impoverished to keep American forces away from Chinese border, and not the Chinese economy and people who have to bear much of that burden.

Their pet dictator gives china all the benefit of tying trump into a geopolitical pretzel without it looking like it is china that is trying to tie American into a geopolitical pretzel.

[Aoi Magi]

If only it was as simple as Trump making a fool of himself I wouldn't be bothered much, I am already used to him embarrassing himself every single day, but if for some reason, let's say a fox anchor suggests for him to nuke NK and be immortalized in history, you better believe he'll go ahead and do it... I feel it is too much of a risk to let two toddlers play with loaded guns, someone needs to be the grownup here, and China needs to realize that while it might be amusing to watch from the sidelines, they have as much to lose as any other nation if a global war does break out!

[Anomalocaris]

If only it was as simple as Trump making a fool of himself I wouldn't be bothered much, I am already used to him embarrassing himself every single day, but if for some reason, let's say a fox anchor suggests for him to nuke NK and be immortalized in history, you better believe he'll go ahead and do it... I feel it is too much of a risk to let two toddlers play with loaded guns, someone needs to be the grownup here, and China needs to realize that while it might be amusing to watch from the sidelines, they have as much to lose as any other nation if a global war does break out!

China believes very fundamental currents, discernible only on the time scale of 50 or 100 years, very much flows in their favor.  They think by virtue of having a relatively educated and trained population that is 4 times bigger than the American population, and who have a vivid living memory of universal abject poverty and are therefore less complacent and more diligent, they will rise to the fore and completely overwhelm the United States in productivity, economic, technological and geopolitical power in the next 50-100 years simply by going with the flow.  

They think there are only a few possibly glitches that can derail them:

1.  Fighting or being drawn into a major war prematurely and losing it.

2.  Collapse of the orderly, predictable, and somewhat effective internal governance, currently provided by the communist party.

If these two things don't happen, then they believe other geopolitical set backs will all be temporary, and their negative effects will all be insignificant next to the increased strength china will gain when 4 times America's population reaches American level of productivity and technological sophistication.

So, I think we can predict what china will do because they will follow specific internal rules in their foreign policy:

1. They will resist all foreign entanglements that could result in a difficult shooting war with uncertain geopolitical consequences

2. They will not back down or compromise on any territorial claims, because doing so would hurt the credibility of the ruling communist party in the eyes of Chinese nationalists, and lead to internal dissent that can harm the continuation of a orderly, predictable, somewhat effective internal governance.

3. They will advocate free trade in ways that favor their exports, but make it difficult for foreign firm to compete for major shares of their domestic markets.

4. They will use increased access, from a base of very restricted access, to their vast and therefore highly profitable domestic markets as their preferred bargaining chips in lieu of making compromises on geopolitical issues.  Ex: If you don't cruise in the South China Sea that china claims, china will let Ford sell cars in china.

5.  They will seek to over extend the United States by not directly opposing the United States anywhere in the world outside of east Asia, but use their financial and economic influence, likely through proxy so no,paper trail leads back to Beijing,  to create situations that would require America to commit military forces to rectify.

6. The over extension of United States will gradually create a vacuum in east Asia, which china will fill with a gradual build up of military, parmarily naval and air, power.

[Edwardo Piet]

Wait... does this mean their missiles are so shit they won't even reach very far?

If so, let's hope Trump doesn't overreact hugely.

Or, if he does, let's hope some people who actually know what they're doing can calm him down by distracting him with some of that Russian pee porn he likes, or something.

1700 miles, Hammy.  Hardly a shit missile. 


Boru

Comparatively shit if other missiles can go even further and it was meant to go a lot further though. It's all relative.

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If WW3 starts..... I will TRY not to panic

I will also try not to have another mental breakdown! This scares the crap out of me

If WW3 happens a mental breakdown'll probably be your least worst option.

Would suicide be the best option if WW3 happens?

[Anomalocaris]

Would suicide be the best option if WW3 happens?

Seems like a wasted effort as death is already highly likely without your interference.

[Edwardo Piet]

But hopefully I could make it painless before it happened