[SHUSIATULSE]

It started on 9/11. That war is still in its opening stages, with regime altering battles (not always instigated by us) in assorted places like North Africa, Sudan, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, Iran, and Pakistan, and perhaps even the back alleys of Europe to come. But those dots are too difficult to connect for some.

I don't think a war started by North Korean will result in a superpower confrontation anymore. China isn't ready for a world war and unlike 20th century tyrants are patient. More likely the Chinese will intervene on our behalf, turn North Korea inside out, and replace the leadership with someone they can keep on a much tighter leash, gaining much fan fair from the diplomatic types but resulting in no real change, and setting up the inevitable...

It will start somewhere in the Pacific, probably not even over Korea or Taiwan directly, though both, along with Japan, will suffer dearly in order to spread our forces out. Economic forces will eventually force China to compete militarily for resources and exclusive markets in Southeast Asia, particularly in the Philippines and Indonesian, but perhaps as far as Africa and Central/South America, for their cheap lead lined crap when robotic manufacturing technology takes hold in the US and Europe. You simply can't keep an urban population that large occupied and subservient without that menial labor. They are either cheap labor, soldiers, or cheap labor for the soldiers.

So they will simply flood the Western Pacific with ships until they can say trade only with us or we will make a mess of that nice port of yours. At which point the US Navy should still be able to cut right through them, but they will respond against Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, and being the instigator this time they can spark all sorts of brush fires elsewhere. Brush fires that make backing Iran in the Security Council look tepid by comparison. The naval battles are likely to be very one sided our way once we get our bearings, though I would expect heavy causalities initially from ambush and sneak attacks. The problem will be that thanks to well defended mainland based air wings and missile batteries, buried deep in the mountains and shielded by hundreds of millions of rabid civilians, they don't need to be close to disrupt shipping across the entire Western Pacific and Eastern Indian Oceans.

The dreaded land war in Asia will be required to shut them down, not to mention have any chance of substantive change in China. After picking apart enough of their strategic missiles, and pushing them back up the Korean peninsula, we will have to turn the tables and split their forces enough for a march on Beijing, involving several amphibious landings down the coasts near Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Shanghai. Russia, whose Siberian resources are most threatened by Chinese hegemony, will side with us, opening an overland route. The UK will help, but not have much influance. Continental Europe, specifically Old (Socialist) Europe fearing the Russian-American Alliance, and urban populations across the US on the other hand, finds the whole thing terribly bothersome, particularly the thought of a China rebuilt in the American image.

China's illustrious leaders of course will not go down without a fight. An ICBM exchange is no longer possible thanks to ABM defenses, but the West Coast and other American bases and allies could very well take a shellacking from a simple nuclear torpedo if the Chinese can sneak enough subs through. We would have boots on their shores, so a retaliatory strike would be counterproductive. I would expect the EU, minus Britain, would see this as their last chance to be relevant and to knock us down a peg, and secretly "join the party" on the East Coast, seeking influence among traitorous politicians in the aftermath to provide "peacekeeping services". Latin American players could smell blood in the water and cause trouble to the south. The inevitable rally by the National Guard resistance and responds will pull the rest of the world in.

The heartland and our vast network of inland waterways ensure our ability to shrug off damage to our coasts and proceed largely unmolested once we get our own house in order.