Everyone might have to share in the pain:
The RAND Corp. in a September analysis recommended that China and the United States reach a prior understanding on respective spheres of interest that could be controlled following a possible regime failure in the North, in order to prevent misunderstandings.
In 2009 we did discuss with China the possibility of North Korea's collapse.
The above story links to another story that says:
Should the regime implode, it is highly likely that South Korea and the United States would enter the North in order to secure the country's unconventional weapons, among other reasons. The Chinese military might also intervene in order to prevent a mass wave of North Korean refugees fleeing into China, creating the potential for a showdown between allied U.S. and South Korean forces and Chinese troops, concludes the study by the research think-tank RAND Corp.
But the problem remains that while we formally support South Korean control of North Korea in case of that event, China really doesn't want an American ally on their Manchurian border. And South Korea's army will shrink dramatically over the coming decade (from 22 to 12 active component divisions, that cited RAND report notes--here's the summary) because of demographic decline of military-age manpower.
I'm not sure that US and South Korean forces could deploy the troops needed to pacify a population of paranoid people.
I'm very sure we don't want a war with China over the walking dead country of North Korea.
And I'm sure we don't want to just turn North Korea over to China and allow Chinese troops to replace North Korean troops at the DMZ.
Remember that demographic and army collapse.
So, as I suggested 9 years ago, we probably need to partition North Korea--including the Russians in this, too.
It's not that anybody really wants North Korea. But nobody trusts anyone else to own it.
