Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-5590986-20180128234403/@comment-26247925-20180129101555

In my opinion, an invasion of North Korea would lead to devastating consequences.

The North Korean-Chinese border is a shallow river, so that would see millions of unskilled workers flock in Manchuria, which is already an "economically depressed region". This would definitely cause civil unrest in China.

Also, an invasion would last for years. I would say the invasion of North Korea would last around 10 years, as joint Korean-American forces attempt to occupy North Korea and are faced with an extremely indoctrinated population. This would be 10 times worse than the Iraq War. And the US would not be able to leave this war either, because of South Korea, a US ally. There's no clear exit strategy for the Americans.

Also, North Korea is a nuclear power. They could easily nuke Seoul and Tokyo and cause tens of millions of deaths. Even nuking North Korea would cause millions of deaths, and it would destroy America's diplomatic position in the world. If they're willing to kill millions of people nuking North Korea, what's to say they won't do it again? It would cause serious ramifications for the US, ones which China and Russia would definitely take advantage of. Their use of nukes against North Korea would also give justification for Iran and Israel to continue pursuing their own nuclear programs, as well as Pakistan, India, and China.