Agree. Just like the hard slog West Germany had to endure when assimilating East Germany. They spent several trillion dollars to bring them up to par, and there wasn't near the difference economically and culturally as that of the two Koreas.

I do think that a new, China-imposed regime would help get the process of modernizing North Korea started. If nothing else, it could be a new source of low cost labor for Chinese firms. Rising labor cost in China threatens to undercut their ability to sell cheap products to the rest of the world, and NK could help fill the gap for a while. That would incentivize China to upgrade the NK power system, to support factories there.

South Korea is a rather rich country. The burden that the North Korean citizens requiring assistance etc would greatly affect their lives and livelihood. I do not think S Korea would want that via chaos. Maybe if slowly organized and assimilated but not mass migration. Most of N Korea is in the dark. Just to get the country up to 3rd world standards would be a long, hard and costly endeavor.

Actually, there is a laser system that demonstrated the ability to shoot down missiles in boost phase of flight. The AirBorne Laser (ABL), carried on a modified Boeing 747, has been mothballed. The problem with laser systems is line of sight. Any airborne or ship based laser weapon has to get very close to the flying missile while it's in boost, since the objective is for the propellants to explode. I think the NK military would quickly connect that big airplane flying just offshore with their missile going boom. A space based laser is another matter.

Red China lacks coherent leadership. It consists of factions, the most important of which is the Red Army. They've been assisting the Norks with their nuclear ambitions. Premier Xi makes the pretense of discouraging Nork nukes, but he knows he would be imprisoned if he seriously interfered.

The U.S. is the biggest market for Chinese goods. That alone is a reason why they wouldn't want to see the U.S. the target of a nuclear attack by North Korea. KJU is not a rational actor, so the option of allowing the little creep to acquire a robust arsenal of weapons he's eager to show off doesn't make much sense. Without the China solution, it will be inevitable that we will have to bite the bullet and go with a conventional attack on the NK military infrastructure.

The North Korean people, particularly the ones you don't see outside of Pyongyang, are malnourished and under the heel of a brutal police state. Rebellion will be met with widespread slaughter, with no chance of overthrowing a tyrannical regime. China may be a Communist state, but the measure of capitalism they've allowed has resulted in a growing middle class. A takeover of North Korea by China will undoubtedly result in a better life for the North Korean people, and a better chance for eventual reunification of Korea.

For MAD doctrine to work, it requires rational leadership of the competing countries. So far, KJU does not appear to be a rational actor, repeatedly embarrassing his prime benefactor, China. He's a conniving, calculating, ruthless tyrant, who may well think he can "punish" the U.S. or its allies without major consequences. The question will be whether or not we continue to live with that risk.

Great idea. We may need the proviso that if the Chinese do not decapitate the (so-called) government we will BUT we will not invade or "clean up the mess" we will leave that to China -- and make it clear that is our plan for the git-go.

how to motivate china to do as you want????...announce the immediate embargo of anything made in china until china removes the regime in north korea....watch how quickly you get what you want...

This is what I think. Trump warned them , they will be annihilated if they attack us..SK or Japan,...period. Tell China that if we have to destroy NK after being attacked that the peninsula will be one nation. KOREA governed by the South Korean govt. China can rein him in if that result is unacceptable.
Kim fat boy is a tumor of cancer , soon his host body (NK) Will die from his govt (cancer). Watch out for his connections with the Mid East types.

All this assumes China doesn't like North Korea just like it is - a huge irritant and potential nuclear foe to the United States. I don't see China being terribly upset if North Korea nuked the US. What would be our response, that is if we could mount one? Nuke China? Don't think so. Nuke North Korea? Do we really have the stomach for killing off millions of North Koreans, most of whom have relatives in South Korea? Do we really think we could nuke North Korea without the fallout also killing thousands of South Koreans? The damage to the South would be far worse in a nuclear retaliation than it would be if we attacked North Korea with conventional weapons now before they figure how to put a fission warhead on an ICBM and detonate it high in the atmosphere between New York and Chicago, shutting down with an EMP the electrical grid on the eastern seaboard for weeks or months or maybe even years. You'd see people drinking water out of lakes and rivers and cannibalizing each other before they could get electricity restored. Millions would die of starvation, and if attacked in the middle of winter millions more would freeze to death. The solution is to do something now with or without China, most likely without. Or do as Trump has suggested, shut down trade with China until they come around. That could be done incrementally. All Trump has to do is announce a 5% import tariff on all China goods to start in 2 weeks, and tell them it's going up an additional 5% for each week that passes after that until they solve the problem. Remember, China is as, or more, dependent on us for their economy as we are of them. We can do without their products, especially in the short run. You lay off millions of Chinese and they have an explosive problem of their own and much worse than a few million North Koreans fleeing their country into China.

It's an interesting idea seeing that China has a million man standing army, They could sweep in and sweep away Kimmie boy than seeing the US take military action against No. Korea. It would be most expedient for us to destroy the next missile launched with our anti-missile system. To bad the military doesn't have laser system to destroy the next missile launch. The laser beam itself is practically invisible, No. Korea and the China would assume the missile exploded by itself.

Honestly, I think this is terrible. I think ALL Overthrows are essentially terrible.
Whenever I see something in the media that makes people think anything "Obvious", I start thinking it is a Psychological Operation.
Remember WMDs? We gotta go get them?
Remember we can fight them there or fight them here? More wars? things only get worse.

And in the end, it always seems to benefit the Military Industrial Complex. Strange...

Lets see how the NK "threat" is working:
South Korea and Japan just made MAJOR Purchases of our military equipment to help defend themselves.

cui bono? (Who Benefits) I guess someone got some HUGE orders...

Even the Sequestration that hit the US Military. What's the answer? Buy more equipment? cui bono?

Fear (Terrorism) and the Threat of war, are great motivators to get people to spend money, or suffer harshness they normally would never accept.

Also, NK is a Chinese puppet already. they want to be able to sell their technology (like we do) all around the world and get paid. And they have REAL demonstrations of it working.
China is probably selling more now as well...

this feels staged in order to get public opinion moving. As most things do.
they are a sovereign nation. They can develop whatever they want. Who are we to stop them?
Just let them know: Welcome the Atomic Era. Please understand that ANY aggressive move will be treated as an all out Nuclear attack, and we will remove you from the face of the earth, using nukes.
MAD workse

South Korea will see it as an opportunity to make it a uniting of north and south. That might turn them toward having it happen under China's aegis. If the south wants it united under the USA's auspices, China definitely won't go for that, and back to the drawing board we go.
Ah, politics! Don'tcha love it?

Why help or endorse the expansion of a Commun-
ist state? Probably we're better off if they quarrel
with each other.
I understand that the North Koreans are probab-
ly worse off than the Chinese, but maybe if
they get fed up enough, they will rebel.

I might be a good bargaining threat. I worry about that NK bunch attacking SK out of spite if an attack came from China or anyone.

Very interesting...

You are right. There's an elephant in the living room that no one is talking about; that is, the Chinese government reportedly has amassed 100,000 troops along their border with North Korea, ostensibly to interrupt the flow of refugees if and when North Korea collapses. Yeah, right. Meanwhile Kim Sung Un kills his brother, a citizen of China, who could have been his Chinese replacement.

The North Korean people are not a factor in anything, they have absolutely no say. I also doubt that no more than the top 5 of Un's followers are even allowed to give him any advice, and none of them can ever question any of his decisions. At least in China today, the people have some freedoms including that most of them are free to leave, if they can afford it.

Your idea should be forwarded to Trump, Congress, the Pentagon, and China. The only ones that might/would strongly object are Kim Jong Un and a few of his top people. The only danger might/would be if Un might/would go berserk and initiate a full blown attack on South Korea and launch everything else at his disposal wherever it goes. I think the man's completely suicidal to maintain his total power. He'd rather blow Korea completely off the face of the earth rather than give up his power. It's interesting how little we hear about the UN's position on anything except when Nikki Haley says something, maybe that's a good thing.

He is being supported by the same China that tried to take over all of korea n the 1950's. Fat boy is going a bit too far and is a bit too arrogant for the Chinese. That said, the Chinese like the idea of a buffer between them and pro western S Korea, and wont give that up. All we have to do is set up a mutually assured destruction scenario between japan, s korea, and n korea at this point, and stop feeding fat boy's ego by paying attention to him.

You bring up an excellent point. I didn't think of nuclear assaults. I was thinking only conventional warfare. Nuclear most definitely alters the calculations.

Only one disagreement with your list of cons: radioactive fallout from the Korean peninsula would be swept into Manchuria by winds from the Sea of Japan. The Chinese government is currently having to deal with angry citizens over the small amount of radioactive fallout from the recent carelessly conducted H-bomb test (apparently they didn't bury it deep enough). I doubt they would view a potential nuclear exchange on the Korean peninsula as nothing to sweat.

I have been thinking for a while now that it would be a good thing and might encourage China to take a more active role if a NK missile accidentally landed in China...then you'd see some action.

I think your on the money here...pass it on to Tillerson.

I have a feeling we wouldn't have to offer anything, as South Korea would be eager to cement ties with a more pacific North Korea. They've already tried to help by establishing an industrial complex in the North to create jobs for their starving northern brethren. That was shut down by KJU, paranoid that it was a den of spies.

NK is not self sustaining and will collapse on its own but like all tyrants he is betting it will not happen in his lifetime and is milking it as long as he can. Keeping his people ignorant and afraid of the evil USA is his gift to them for enduring starvation, disease and a worthless existence.