I see North Korea joining Russia. Those 40m people would fit our Far Eastern region (6m population total, about 5% of which are koreans) quite well.
Short- and Mid-term, U.S. will never pull out of NK trouble because it is what allows U.S. to warmonger in the East China sea, pretty controlling the most dense naval trade route. If NK is solved, the only major thing that justify American bases in the region is what, ISIS activity in Phillipines? Very convincing :) U.S. historically uses NK as an argument in making deals in the South Eastern Asia, and I don't see Trump changing that policy, in fact I see him doing just that (see how he reversed SK idea of stopping the missile deployment recently).
That being said, U.S. needs NK trouble, not NK trouble solved, therefore I don't think U.S. will ever strike NK, and NK has no ability to strike U.S. U.S. will, however, continue NK warmongering because SK missiles, Japanese naval bases etc.
Longterm, NK crisis will solve itself along with U.S. power inevitably declining in the coming decades. When you guys don't have the resources to uphold the bases on East China sea, the need for NK troublemaker will disappear as well. That will be the time when either NK joins Russia (I don't think China will enjoy that tho) or NK and SK reunite (the longer it takes, the less possible it is).
On the possible war issue
As stated above, I don't see this happening from pragmatic point of view. U.S. doesn't need NK trouble solved. From nuclear problem PoV, neither Russia nor China will allow NK to have feasible nuclear arms delivery program because thank you two nuclear states in the region are more than enough. And having uncontrolled nuclear missiles 700km from Beijing (and even less so a naval nuclear program because nuclear NK submarines/ships will easily enter Bohay gulf) is not something China will tolerate.
There is however an issue that U.S. government of late is more and more ideologic and less and less pragmatic. The clown carpet that Washington D.C. looks like now is quite troubling for everyone around. So it is possible that being ideologically pumped by politicians and media, U.S. people will support the direct assault by U.S. on NK. In this scenario I do not see either Russia or China to sit and do nothing. Why you ask? See the world map, that's why. You can't attack a country bordering a superpower and expect that superpower to eat that. If U.S. stomps down on NK, it will mean that U.S. will leave its bases on NK, and that's something Russia would have zero tolerance for. There are also other factors in place, like Energy Super Ring, Trans-Korean railroad, Trans-Korean gas pipe and other infrastructure projects both China and Russia are invested in. So when one says that "North Korea is absolutely blocked" one is dead wrong. Like when some two years ago I was saying that I deal with North Koreans, I was meaning it.
What that "would not sit and do nothing" result in - I don't know, and I'd rather not think about it. Let's just hope U.S. people don't support that shit if McCain miraculously survives his tumors and starts pushing it.
Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 08/10/2017 12:48AM by Kstatida.