Silent But Deadly

If there are people who seriously worry that getting China to deal with the North Korean threat by engineering a regime change via coup or invasion will signal a transfer of regional dominance to China, I suggest that we quietly take part in the loud Chinese campaign to control North Korea. Participation will allow America to privately claim a disproportionate role in the counter-nuclear campaign, if not the regime change.

I don't think it is reasonable to worry that successfully getting China to deal with North Korea so America doesn't have to do the job signals China's dominance.

What I do worry about is that a Chinese effort won't deal with the North Korean nukes as fast as we could handle it and that North Korea might--despite the invasion coming from the north--launch any nuclear weapons that they have at South Korea, Japan, or America.

Perhaps Kim Jung-un would hope such a response will trigger a war between America and China, and so save the regime.

So we should probably participate in the Chinese effort that focuses on regime change that provides a long-term solution to the nuclear problem while we focus on the immediate nuclear angle of existing capabilities.

To be quietly done so we can publicly deny it, the American effort to destroy North Korea's nuclear weapons capabilities, it would have to be done purely by stealth platforms. Making it even more important to scrape up every stealth plane we have.