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Posted by Bill Oreto on January 1, 2026, 5:49:05, in reply to "Re: The Kim Dynasty"
Considering we wasted billions on LCS, Zumwalt, San Antonio and Ford class CVNs it should be a Chinese cake walk for them to take Taiwan. South Korea and Japan will fight alongside the USN possibly even Australia but won’t make much of difference.
Kim is not worried about South Korean/US invasion. That is a joke but a useful one to continue devoting his economy to the military while placating China. The North Koreans have no love for the Chinese so as you said, Kim’s nuclear weapons are to keep both Chinese and South Koreans on their sides of the border. China does not want North Korea. It wants South Korea’s industrial capacity, food production and more ports.
China on the other hand bluffs a great deal and would love the world to think it could do almost anything it wants. It can’t. Today China’s internal economy is on life support and its navy surrounded by historic enemies. What keeps it going is access to cheap natural resources. If that should change (and it is) China will have a lot of bills and a pretty much worthless currency to pay them with. And that is what you get for deflating your currency to encourage exports for 50 years. Both European and US levy tariffs on China. This to safeguard indigenous businesses, bring down domestic inflation while denying China a real hard currency to pay its bills.
Militarily it’s not in China’s best interest to open hostilities. Even as overwhelming winners it loses. 
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Kim's stated reason for nukes is to preserve his regime. Which is actually reasonable. I don't recall the exact quote, but it has been said the US does not treat nuclear armed nations it disagrees with the same as non nuclear armed ones. Kim states worry over South Korea, with US backing, overthrowing his regime. And I agree that he realizes he can be nuked in return. What I don't know is what (outside of direct South Korean invasion) Kim would interpret as a threat to his regime. Nor do I know his reaction to a nuclear exchange between the US and China happening on his doorstep. Would he consider that a prelude to US invasion and decide to prempt? How allied to China is he? (I suspect not actually in any really friendly way. Geography has forced him to cooperate.)
I completely disagree with your certainty that "There is no way China could ever successfully complete an invasion of Formosa across the Taiwan Straight." We have wargammed a healthy number of scenarios, and China has won more than a few. I am sure that in their own wargames, China has won quite a few more. Nothing about war is predictable. If China feels confident enough at all at any point, your "certainty" means nothing. There were voices within Japan that warned of disaster in a long term war with the US. They were drowned out at the political level, and Yammamoto hoped he would strike enough of an opening blow that it would not be a long term war. If China decides to attack (however irrational that may seem to you) and the US decides to respond, then two nuclear armed powers are in open war with each other. The possibilities for misinterpretations and accidental nuclear engagement alone are several, and escalation of any sort is a monster which drives itself. Leaders often feel they have "no choice" but to keep escalating once it starts. Some movies show sanity prevailing at the last second. Others are darker. Both are valid outcomes.
My study of history is not optimistic about the nature of my species. Our capacity for war is intense, and once two big powers wind up and go at it "all bets are off." I don't see many "happy endings." There are indeed a few. They are outnumbered. Previous Message
If Kim Jong Un initiates war or conflict with anyone his dynasty will not survive no matter what the outcome and anyway, It would be absolutely impossible for Nth Korea's pop of 27m to forcibly subjugate the south's 57m, not even in George Orwell's dreams. I certainly have no idea what Kim's short term goals are but I am pretty sure in the long run he doesn't want to go down in history as the very last of his dynasty, and he well knows if he mucks up what's been handed to him on a silver platter with all the trappings he'll end up dead and forever humiliated, and probably his entire family also.
Same is true for Xi. There is no way China could ever successfully complete an invasion of Formosa across the Taiwan Straight, and if Xi foolishly attempts it will mean the end of him personally and Mao's party.
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H I Sutton, Covert Shores, is a decent authoritative source. He finds it "credible." Its construction has actually been observed for a while:
https://www.hisutton.com/DPRK-SSN-Update.html
It is one thing to have one. Quite another to operate it. This is infancy if not a fake. One more step to making the region the most obvious flashpoint for the world's next serious global conflict, and one more indication to me that this one will likely end us as the globally interactive species we currently are. Survivors will be returned to isolated pockets like the stone age. Previous Message
Image to me is clay mockup or AI. Do you believe it is the actual vessel?
https://apnews.com/article/north-korea-kim-nuclear-submarine-trump-042354b0b38bb429f937a4ecb7f70df2
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