What Would Happen After A Preemptive Strike on North Korea?

Via a reader tip comes this article from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute that describes the possible perils of a pre-emptive strike on North Korea:

First, conflict on the Korean peninsula could result in a momentous change in China’s role in the region and ultimately the globe. That could range from absolute regional dominance to collapse and disintegration into internal instability.

Regardless of the outcome of the conflict, South Korea could reject a self-interested, value-less, America-first approach to the region and choose to accept China’s dominance as the price to be paid for unification. For most South Koreans, China’s current steady position of reiterating the need for de-escalation, multilateral dialogue, and ultimately denuclearisation—essentially, diplomacy—stands in stark contrast to the incoherence and fecklessness of Donald Trump’s bluster. Throughout history, when China was weak, external states or greater independence came to the Korean peninsula. When China was strong, the Korean peninsula fell under its influence. It was from this point that China’s regional influence grew. China’s dominance on the Korean peninsula could again be a launching pad for dominance in East Asia.

Alternatively, unification could spread dissatisfaction and opposition to authoritarian rule across the region, leading to internal instability in China. Political disruption, economic dislocation and descent into instability are possible outcomes. Even in the most favourable unification scenario, North Koreans with direct or indirect experience of the momentous human rights abuses that China implicitly supported could act as a powerful constraint to China’s long-term influence in a unified Korea. China’s current policies aimed at maintaining the status quo are founded on the fears of such potential outcomes. Regardless of which way the dice fall, China’s regional role will change. A pre-emptive strike in Korea would precipitate that change.  [The Strategist]

You can read more at the link, but I don’t think anyone denies that China will have a major role in after a conflict with North Korea.  That is why I think the US government is giving China the maximum opportunity to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue without a military confrontation.  I also think if the price of a unified Korea after a military conflict is one with China with primary hegemony over the peninsula many policy makers may actually think that may be a good deal to get rid of the Kim regime and their nuclear weapons.