Time's Battleland: How America Painted Itself Into A Corner on North Korean Succession
Friday, January 6, 2012 at 9:45AM 
Great Washington Post piece on China’s intense desire for stability on Korean peninsula, thus the clear backing of the “Great Successor” Kim Jong Eun. Wrap-up paragraph says it all:
The notion of a democratized Korean Peninsula with U.S. troops positioned directly along the Chinese border — one scenario in a North Korean collapse — is threatening to China because of Washington’s other moves in the region. The Obama administration, describing the United States as a new “Pacific power,” has in recent months strengthened economic ties with the Southeast Asian countries it once neglected; it has also built relationships with some of Beijing’s neighbors, particularly Vietnam and Burma, threatening Chinese influence.
My company, the massively multiplayer online consultancy Wikistrat, recently ran a simulation . . .
Read the entire post at Time's Battleland blog.
Reader Comments (4)
Fascinating how media and both political parties have not commented on this US dumb policy.
We ignore China's concerns, and the risks associated with a nuclear North Korea which has a long stressed social and political structure ... while we over react and over publish about Iran.
It was truly a very great miracle that we did not blow the entire world to kingdom come during the Cuban missile crisis. I stood in the student union at Loyola University listening to Kennedy's speech. Wondering if I was going to be sent off somewhere to die in uniform or if I was just going to die in Chicago when the ICBM's came raining down.
Now, spurs jingling and hands resting on the butts or our six guns we walk down Gulf Street towards the waiting Iranians. A little warm up for the big one to come?
Who is behind the insane idea that we can dictate to the Chinese? They outnumber us four to one. They have a perfect right to exercise their influence in their part of the world. Our policy defies logic and reason. Why are we still in Korea? If we pull out it becomes China's problem entirely. When we left Vietnam it only took the Chinese a couple of years to remember that they hated the Vietnamese and they launched an attack across the border in 1979. About 20,000 died on each side in a nasty fight as we looked on scratching our heads.
I see each of our presidential hopefuls arguing that God loves them the most. One didn't know the Chinese had nuclear weapons. Another wanted to close the embassy in Iran...where we haven't had an embassy since Jimmy Carter was President. The current President sends the Marine band to Australia to scare the heathens off. Do the people setting our policy think the Chinese are still wearing pigtails and shuffling around in wooden clogs?
I tell you Tom...I fear for the children.
re : Kim Jong Eun...how about the scenario that he simply can't live up to the job? Do any of the scenarios change if he turns out to be incompetent, blundering, massively egotistical (all or any of the above) and still retains power?
What´s so wrong about Obama returning to East Asia? Many countries in thgios region were frightened by the absence of the USA in this region. At the moment it is just counterbalance to the Chinese ambitions which frighten all the other Asian countries. The quadrialist security dialogue is not a new Asian NATO, just a baby step towards it (AEI).As long as there is no block building, I don´t see the problem.As long as Chian and Russia don´t accept a membership of Iran in the Shanghai Cooperation, I also don´t see a problem when the USA engages with Japan., Southkorea, Asutralia and India. India never will join an Asian NATO if the PR China is not offending them directly.In Northkorea the USA cannot have any influence and a withdraw o troops in Southkorea would even be destabilizing--that´s not even waht the Chinese want.