WORST-CASE SCENARIOS IN NORTH KOREA

Author: Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies

Scenario 1: The North Koreans mistakenly believe that the US is going to launch an attack on them, and Kim Jong Un does something crazy.

The big dilemma here is that, in North Korea at least, everything is organized around the fear that they will be invaded. The North Korean theory is that on the first day of a potential war with America, if they just use a bunch of nuclear weapons in South Korea, in Japan potentially, the damage will be so severe that the US will be deterred from future aggression, or that the costs will be so high that a successful invasion will be impossible. But for this strategy to be effective, it means North Korea has to go nuclear first, to raise the stakes to an impossibly high level right at the beginning. The worry is that North Korea decides to escalate immediately to deter a potential invasion. It’s easy to see how things could get out of hand in a hurry.

Scenario 2: The North Koreans stage yet another provocation, only this time it goes too far and South Korea responds.

The scenario here is that North Korea goes one provocation too far and South Korea finally responds in kind. It's hard to imagine how this will play out. The South Koreans are increasingly committed to their ability to respond to these provocations, but they're terrified of a nuclear strike. They're developing ballistic and cruise missiles with the express purpose of killing Kim Jong Un. The idea is that they can eliminate [Kim] so that he won't be alive to give the orders to launch nuclear weapons. But if they try and fail to take out Kim, all bets are off. So the concern here is that North Korea is always staging provocations, but eventually they’ll go too far, and the situation will unravel.

Scenario 3: The Trump administration talks itself into a conflict it can’t contain.

Trump is being humiliated by North Korea after he insists the situation is under control: He says North Korea is contained, and then they continually defy him with one provocation after another. Eventually, the administration convinces itself that regime change is the only viable option.

Trump decides he's just going to isolate North Korea; gather forces in the region, round up a few allies, and get some kind of dim authorization from Congress for the use of force. And then, before you know it, the US is involved in a major conflict.

The  worry here is that the Trump administration talks itself into believing that this will be easy, and gets embroiled in a crisis it can't contain.

Scenario 4: North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear weapons finally spawns an arms race with Japan, which in turn extends to other regional powers.

Right now there's an aggressive cruise missile race in Asia. Not only do the Chinese have cruise missiles but so do the South Koreans and the Taiwanese. The North Koreans have mostly ballistic missiles. The only country so far that hasn't gotten involved in this arms race is Japan. But there are indications that Japanese Prime Minister [Shinzo] Abe wants to buy Tomahawk land-attack missiles from the United States, which would be an enormous enhancement in Japan's offensive capabilities and very alarming to North Korea and the Chinese.

So the question here is: Will the North Korea's aggressive provocations finally push Japan to militarize? This would be a predictable response by Japan to North Korea's microaggressions. But it could dramatically destabilize the region by setting off a chain of destructive consequences.

Scenario 5: The North Korean regime collapses internally, creating a failed state.

If the government started to collapse, we'd likely see a return of the horrific things we saw in the ’90s, with famine and disease spreading over the country. But we'd also have armed factions fighting one another for power, and you can imagine a scenario in which the United States, South Korea, China, and others get sucked in.

If North Korea does collapse, it'll be closer to Bosnia or Libya or Syria, and that means proxy conflicts and power vacuums. And remember: If the regime does fall, someone will have to go in there and secure those nuclear weapons, and there's no easy way to do that.

This is probably the least likely scenario, but it is certainly possible. This is a very unstable regime, and we definitely can’t rule out a state collapse.

Other Possible Developments

China responds: It's very possible that if North Korea staged an unprovoked attack, China might intervene in Pyongyang, and hold the Northern component of North Korea, and not give additional military support to the North Korean regime. But some analysts feel that China wouldn’t turn against its ally, North Korea.While China has pressured North Korea to denuclearize, it's overall attitude hasn't really changed. A united Korea allied with Washington on China's border would be bad news for Beijing given its continuing rivalry with the United States in Asia.

US retaliates, but doesn’t nuke North Korea: Launch of a major cruise missile, followed up by an air campaign against all of the frontline North Korean artillery. The idea would be to disable North Korea's artillery along its front line, along with its mobile missile systems.