What happens if North Korea goes to war with America

Every week, we see new provocations between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un. But what does it really mean?

Tensions have led to ever stronger exchanges, military exercises and missile tests, each leading to greater threats from both countries.

In recent weeks, Trump has called for “fire and rage, just as the world has never seen”, which will be launched over North Korea, and ordered military exercises that have angered Koreans. For their part, they have claimed that Trump has declared war on the country, and that they now have the right to bring down American military planes.

But is the world really on the verge of World War III? Experts say it may not, even though they note it is easy to see how it can get there.

A general consensus is that the American president's statements are only a rhetorical explosion, although many cite the fact that rhetorical explosions have a unfortunate story leading to war.

The new escalation is the latest in a steady increase of tensions between Pennyan and Washington, and it came after a report claiming that North Korea had developed nuclear weapons that were so small that they could get caught in a rocket and fly to U.S. territory to explode there.

After that came what the prominent gun control expert Jeffrey Lewis described as a <x0-cynoval warmonger”.

The statement “fire and the fury” of Trump is unprecedented in American relations with North Korea, and evidently similar to the kind of rhetoric that comes out of Peniani.

North Korea challenged the American leader's blog within hours of his statement, announcing that he was exploring the possibility of attacking Guam, a US Pacific territory where strategic bombers are located.

This statement appears to have been formulated in response to the flights of the two US B1-B bombers over the Korean Peninsula on Monday, a repeat of a similar operation conducted in July and therefore, not in response to Trump's warning.

Rex Tillerson, the president's foreign policy chief, rushed to calm the situation and advised the American public not to worry.

But, the message of domestication seems to have not affected Donald Trump, who woke up and wrote in Twitter that the US nuclear arsenal was the most powerful “than ever before” although he added that he hoped never to use it.

However, the U.S. leader's move towards an open fight against North Korea has created fear about the possibility of a major global nuclear conflict, whose effects would inevitably involve the destruction of large parts of the world.

But is the world on the verge of destruction by a nuclear war?

Perhaps not, according to experts contacted by the “The Independent”. President Trump's comments show a significant and significant change in rhetoric that is being exchanged between North Korea and the US, but they seem to be just rhetoric at the moment.

The first thing I'd say is I'm not sure Trump's comments change basic accounts in the Korean Peninsula, north or south of”, says James Hannah, assistant head of the Asia programme at Chatham House.

That which is markedly different is the Trump factor, and it has somehow simulated North Korea's military approach”.

Even the president's voice is just one of many, even though it's Commander General at the White House, and it's much more aggressive.

Rex Tillerson said there was no immediate “” and that “Americans should sleep quietly at night”, explaining that the President had adopted such a confrontational tone, because that's the language Kim Jong-Un can understand.

This does not mean that there is no reason for concern.

“Following North Korea for a long time, I am increasingly concerned,” says Aidaan Foster-Carter, researcher in sociologist and modern Korea at Leeds University. I'm worried about the rhetoric getting out of control on both sides. This could lead to the wrong account”.

Professor Foster-Carter points out he's not suggesting the comments.  The US Trump, or approach, was something similar to that of North Korea, only there was a higher degree of public hostility between the two sides.

North Korea demonstrates it better than any other nation, than the bubble is important.

I'm worried about the unbridled rhetoric”, says Jeffrey Lewis, professor at the James Martin Centre for Nuclear Nonproliferation Studies. Because I'm worried that Korean allies won't realize it's just a hunch. But, that said, I don't believe it's evidence that the U.S. will attack North Koreans. In a strange way it's reassuring, because it's obvious that he doesn't know what to do: if there was any plan to attack, he wouldn't talk about his plan to attack”.

Can conflict erupt at some point in the near future?

Perhaps the most terrible thing about the situation is how impossible it is to answer that question; there are simply many different elements, each of them unpredictable in itself, and leading to a situation where almost anything can happen.

If the accounts have not changed, what is happening to us is a greater level of unpredictable and tension rhetoric”, Hannah says. Which has a number of consequences. If the U.S. is unpredictable, Trump supporters can see this as a prog with radicalisation and pressure on North Korea and possibly on China, making the threat happen. But also, this unpredictableness does not work well with American allies in the region, like Japan or South Korea. It creates a kind of echo chamber, with bulging rhetoric”.

And with President Trump in power, rhetoric tends to dominate the debate and often becomes the debate itself.

“If it strengthens rhetoric, then I think there is a greater concern in some countries, that the chances of intervention have increased”, adds Mr. Hannah.

It's all about it, then, if North Korea thinks Mr. Trump's statements actually mean something. If it's just a stroke a habit they're familiar with then very little has changed; if they think the rhetorical attitude is something that puts them at risk, then conflict may arise.

How can a war break out?

If a conflict should occur, war would likely erupt by accident, not by thought. Mr. Trump's comments may be powerful as rhetorical, but wars have already occurred from similar rhetoric.

Significantly, most people are, of course, still opposed to the idea of nuclear wars. This is a fairly confident assumption, and it means that, no one will choose to launch the atom bomb in another location for good luck.

Traditional military intervention, the kind Western governments had hoped for when they entered Iraq in 2003, is also probably out of the question.

As soon as North Korea feels that it is being conquered, it is likely to launch attacks on South Korea; if that were to happen, the big questions of North Korea's nuclear capabilities would be less important, as Seoul could be hit by simple artillery. The idea of endangering those people is impossible for an intervention.

“Although I'm concerned about Trump, I think he'll be persuaded to follow such a course,” says Professor Foster-Carter. This would destroy South Korea, destroy the alliance; it would be more harmful, even more than all the conflicts we've learned, unfortunately, in places like Iraq”.

But it's not that simple.

The “has become more complicated, to the point that concerns about miscalculation are higher, so there's probably a further danger, Hannah says. “in a very complicated situation, I think there is fear of an unpredictable error, or a message that causes a kind of chain reaction from one side, or another”.

This is the main concern about President Trump's comments that they can be read as a suggestion that something harmful will happen, and that they can respond preventively.

And with such a growth of aggressive rhetoric, any possibility of an individual incident will be much higher.

Cutting off negotiations and diplomacy between the US and North Korea also means that any small event can be important, as there is no easy way for any country to address or calm any problems.

Between 1994 and 2003, diplomatic agreements froze the development of North Korean nuclear weapons and made it easier for diplomacy to enter between the country and its opponents on other issues.

This means that when you have a conflict when there's a fire exchange in the marine demarcation line, for example you have a way to ease tensions”, says Professor Hazel Smith, author of the North Korean “Threes and Military Rules”. Today, there is no such thing.

So, if there is a relatively small incident on the border, which is still controversial, which is still possible, there is the possibility that it will escalate. That's how war starts. It's dangerous, the situation we have today, especially when you have many countries with different interests”.

If this war were to happen, the U.S. would probably win it that's very clear and is a key factor in the American Army's opinion. But this part of the world is surrounded by many of the largest armed forces in the world, and any conflict would be a very, very bloody “, says Professor Smith. 

So, what does Donald Trump do?

It is possible that President Trump's comments are part of a master plan, however unlikely it sounds.

And the fact that he's talking about North Korea is a significant break from the Obama administration's commitment to what is called strategic patience, but that actually “was hard to distinguish from neglect”, says Professor Foster-Carter.

“Trump needs to be recognised as credit that takes North Korea seriously, but does it exceptionally”, he says.

Anyone who prefers to think of Trump as a strategic genius can view his latest comments as evidence of a clear vision plan.

Those who seek to look kindly may suggest that he is trying to compare the often aggressive comments of North Korea with similar attacks on his part, or that his lack of discretion is the result of “theor of the madman”, in which a person is acting so strangely that he is confusing opposers by gaining superiority over the perception that he can do something crazy.

In some ways, he has the advantage of helping both sides. Both Penian and Washington are guided by people who are interested in making the other look bad and insensitive, both want to look strong, and both can benefit from the impression that if encouraged, they can cause a nuclear disaster.

Mr. Trump's comments were partly apparent, because he didn't seem to have received orientation about them, and he probably didn't even plan to say. Trump's unpredictableness is reflected in the whole situation.

The intervention of Rex Tillerson, who is among Trump's most esteemed advisers, shows that the White House is still trying to avoid a total escalation.

The danger depends to a large extent if those sharper heads can cause Trump to remain calm. His statement is not as important to what he said as to the fact that he was able to say. It presents a new instability in a highly volatile situation, in the form of the most powerful man in the world.

Who are the allies of North Korea?

Traditionally, North Korea has received assistance from countries like Russia and China. It can really be China that at least partly motivates the recent explosion of President Trump.

I don't think we're seeing a US nuclear war mobilization”, Hannah says.

But Trump has invested a lot in the North Korean issue, as a matter to prove himself. It's also very important for his approach to China. And China is an important part of its foreign policy, at least in rhetoric”.

What does it mean for the United Kingdom and Europe?

Very little, both in terms of immediate danger and diplomatic effects. European countries will undoubtedly follow recent developments with much interest, but they are relatively small actors on such issues.

The U.S. is involved because it has become a useful enemy to North Korea for all kinds of reasons, involving Korean warfare and events before and then.

But the most generally involved are those around North Korea, including Japan and South Korea, as well as Russia and China.

How can we stop it?

That could have stopped in the 1990s. Then there was a North Korean appetite for a negotiated solution, and a US desire to accept.

Such a relatively direct solution could no longer be possible to fix a problem like Korea. The country believes, perhaps rightly, that its nuclear programme keeps other countries away from the idea of changing the regime, which means its leadership is unlikely to give up the large Atomic Agreement market.

So, any security agreement that makes all parties interested together, including China, Russia and Japan, as well as the US, will have to ensure that there will be no regime change. This would be displeasing to the United States, since it meant not only recognition but also commitment to perpetuate a oppressive and deadly regime.