[CaptainCrunch]

I've been reading a lot about North Korean history and its government over the last few years. For some reason I find the whole situation there to be utterly facinating because the whole thing defies logic. but is also the worlds most perfect laboratory around control of a citizen population.

Lets first off all take the whole military rationality out of this. There's no way that North Korea wins in any scenario militarily and either they know it or they're delusional enough to believe that the Western World will back down militarily and politically if North Korea starts firing shots.

If North Korea drops a nuke, the world ends for that nation, they have to know that.

If North Korea repeats their actions where they sank a Frigate and shelled an island, well I think they've used up their good will and the world won't back down and open the aid spigots like they did last time.

Remember that Kim Jung Un was ascending when those attacks were ordered last time, and scuttlebutt is that the orders for those attacks came from him and not from his father Kim Jong Il. At the time it was theorized that he was consolidating power by allying with the military over their ISS which is considered to be infiltrated and influenced by China.

Now Kim Jung Un has taken his fathers and grandfathers playbook of threatening to get their way and to get money and aid but there's a problem.

Kim Jong-Il and his grandfather were probably the most savvy political operators that this world has seen. They were bold, they were rational in their own sense and they understood how far that they had to push and where they had to stop in order to get the world to listen to their demands in terms of getting the parties to the 6 nations table or to get food, fuel and currency into the North.

My theory is that Kim Jung Un was not ready to take on the mantle of leadership, he didn't have the years to mature and gain control of the various factions in the nation that his father did who learned at his fathers feet for decades. Because of that he's being influenced by family members and Generals and he's trying to placate all of them, and he's also impulsive and arrogant and spoiled and I don't think he's entirely rooted in reality like his father and grandfather.

He's also got an x-factor that his father never dealt with in the Chinese. Kim Jong-Il knew how to play the Chinese, his son I don't believe does.

Now he's trapped, the expected break point that his father used to know how to get to, well juniors driven right past it without getting anything so he's in uncharted territory.

He's got a hostile government to the South with powerful allies that he regards as a massive threat to his power and his government. But now he's got a power to the North that suddenly a threat to his power. If the Chinese come in to the Norths defense they will depose the government in place line up all of the senior members and shoot them and place a Chinese friendly government in its place.

He's effectively trapped with his bluster.

He might back down over the next couple of days. However he's now at the point that the worlds major powers now have their fingers on the literal hair trigger.

If he executes the next logical step which could be

1) A commando raid across the border
2) Take a shot at a naval unit
3) Shell a piece of South Korean territory
4) Make it look like he's preparing that missile to launch

He might trigger the apocalypse for North Korea that in a way he's trying to avoid.

Military on Military whether against China or SK the NK's aren't a monsterous threat, it will still be a hell of a slugging match but the edge in training and equipment goes heavily South or Chinese.

However in the initial stages of any shooting battle which would be North Korea vs Seoul,well the results would be in the manner of 10's of thousands of South Koreans dead in the first 10 minutes of a war. Don't misunderstand Kim Jung-Un like most dictatorial thugs in history don't really care about that, in fact sewing a little terror is a benefit to him.

He's doing this internally to establish his strength and conviction, he's doing this externally to get food and aid that his nation desperately needs.

This crisis in a lot of ways is a lot more intense then the standoffs in the past, and we're now sitting on a tightrope made out of piano wire.

Will we see a war? No, my gut tells me that we see a limited engagement battle in the next few days though.

Oh and one poster said that the Chinese Army massing on the border is to stop the flood of refugees. The Chinese are moving their heavy hitter formations to the border like the 190th mechanized brigade which is a balanced combination of advanced modern battletanks and APC's supported by administrative artillery formations. Units like this aren't made to be effective border patrols against Civilians. They're built as the first to front armored fist where their speed, mobility and firepower rip holes in an enemy formation and charged to rear to encircle enemy defenses. The Chinese are also working up their airforce heavily.

The Chinese have placed an invasion capable formation at the border. If this was about stopping refugees, the Chinese have entire regiments of dedicated border guards that they would use.