What are the Chances of a 2nd Korean War? Everything you need to know but were afraid to ask.

[Zorro]

I found the following in a KOS diary. It's a bit lengthy but insightful and well worth the read.

<snip>

Trump’s promise of “fire and fury like the world has never seen,” did not produce an end of threats, nor of actions, from North Korea. Quite the contrary. It directly provoked North Korea to announce plans (now on hold) to shoot four Hwason-12 intermediate-range ballistic missiles around Guam, just outside the 12 mile territorial limit (McKirdy, Cohen and Field 2017). Whether they will go through with this, and if they do what Trump’s response will be, is impossible to predict. Much depends on what people other than Trump and Jung-un do, even you. But we can be sure that the threats from both Kim Jung-un and Donald Trump will continue. As will sanctions, testing and confrontations until… until? Which raises the real question:

What are the chances that a Second Korean War will soon break out? What might happen if it does?

The chance for war between North Korea and the U.S. and its closest allies in the region (South Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand) is small, but it is real and it is growing. Slightly smaller is the chance that it will turn into a nuclear war. Smaller still, but not zero, is the possibility that China will be drawn into the conflict, leading to general thermonuclear war—an extinction level event.

The chances for war have been increasing geometrically because of President Trump’s actions in the context of the personality (and cult) of Kim Jung-un in North Korea. Since Trump’s election there has been a cycle of escalation. The U.S. has acted with bellicose rhetoric, provocative military maneuvers and trainings, increasingly severe sanctions, and testing and deploying anti-ballistic missile systems. North Korea has acted with bellicose rhetoric, provocative military maneuvers and trainings, and a series of successful ICBM and nuclear weapons tests. On September 3, 2017, North Korea successfully tested a hydrogen weapon with a yield of at least 100 kilotons, ten times more powerful than their last nuclear test (Beuge, Alex, Pablo Gutiérrez, et al., 2017). The Japanese Defense ministry estimates the size of the successful test was 160 kilotons (Westcott 2017).

<snip>

More at: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/9/27/1702303/-What-are-the-Chances-of-a-2nd-Korean-War-Everything-you-need-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-ask

[Dan]

1. Maybe

The question should be - a return to the active phase of the initial Korean War.