Tensions on the peninsula have risen to the point where it is considered 'likely' that something is going to snap. What and how is another question.

What's you take on the current situation?

If it comes to blows, do you support a war against (...or for? To be fair.) North Korea? In what form? Is it Team America and buddy South Korea? America + SK + Japan? Or some form of UN intervention?

What of the role of China?

Any other comments, whateverIcan'tbebothereddirecting.

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My initial take on this is that Kim Jong-un was facing some kind of internal leadership crisis. And because the DPRK is a clear Orwellian case study lifted from the pages of 1984, he is playing up the role of the US and SK as aggressors, when they're not, in order to get some kind of domestic unity against an external threat---a threat that doesn't really exist (at least in an aggressive form).

But now it's only escalated, he's either facing a really bad internal party crisis following his father's death, or he hasn't yet got the reaction he wants. Perhaps it's not an internal crisis of the party, but one of the proletariat. They must be starving. They must have heard about the outside world. TVs must have been smuggled in from China. They must be able to pick up South Korean radio or TV signals. They must know everything is not as they are being told. Perhaps the workers are restless, and Kim Jong-un is searching for more aid. I think he's going about it the wrong way, but if it comes to whether the South gives him food or bombs, I imagine they'd prefer to give food.

Despite all that, In really would like the walls of that giant prison busted open. But I'm weary of the role of China. China would not look favourably upon any nation that attacks the North. China is busy image-building across the world (particularly in Africa and the Pacific, regions really without much of a stake in the present world order)---it's image as a good global citizen would be much enhanced if it managed to diffuse the situation. And that's a position it finds itself in. The North won't listen to the United States or the United Nations unless they are offering bribes. China has a lot more leverage, particularly as another socialist-autocratic nation.

But then I'm further worried about China-Japan relations. They're fraying. If it only took the bullet of one man to tip the world into WWI, what would one stray North Korean missile do?

It's pretty scary.

I think I would support any war reacting to North Korean aggression. I'd support it more if it was through the United Nations, though it's clear that that would be very unlikely to be the eventuality given the pace of reaction that would need to be done in response to an attack from the North. I don't think I'd support New Zealand involvement under any umbrella apart from the UN's.