Yes, it would start with taking control over the South China Sea, but I don't see any dispute with China as ending with the immediate threat. Any action would be opening a can of worms that I don't think the US is prepared to face.
Why do you think North Korea would become involved?
Seems like the US is trying to make more allies in the region. The US recently lifted a ban on contact with the Indonesian Special Forces Unit. Link to full NY Times article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/23/wo...html?ref=world
Quote:
U.S. Lifts Ban on Indonesian Special Forces Unit
By ELISABETH BUMILLER and NORIMITSU ONISHI
JAKARTA, Indonesia — The United States is lifting a ban of more than a decade on military contact with an elite Indonesian special forces unit implicated in past killings of civilians and other abuses, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced Thursday, after meeting here with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia.
The decision to lift the ban and to take steps toward training the unit, called Kopassus, was reached after intensive internal debate among the Pentagon, the White House and the State Department over whether it had truly left its brutal history behind.
The Indonesian government lobbied hard for an end to the ban, and officials dropped hints that the group might explore building ties with the Chinese military if the ban remained. The Pentagon had long pushed for the 1999 ban to be lifted, but met resistance from the State Department and White House.
For the most part, current criticism of the unit has been limited to human rights organizations. In the past decade, the military lost much of its political influence and power to the national police, whose abuses and corrupt practices have now become the focus of Indonesian society. The anticipated lifting of the ban on Kopassus drew little attention from the public, news media or politicians here. Indonesian rights organizations say that the unit has continued to commit abuses, especially in Papua, a mineral-rich island with a secessionist movement, since Indonesia began democratizing in 1998. They say that Kopassus has also been behind the kidnapping of human rights activists since 1998.
“The governments of Indonesia and the United States must be aware of the political violence involving Kopassus not only during the past military era, but during the current era of democracy,” said Usman Hamid, executive director of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence, a private organization. “So far, not one single person in the military has been held accountable for past violations. Impunity is the weakest point in the democracy of Indonesia.”
Defense Department officials said they had received assurances from the Indonesian government that any member of the group who is credibly accused of abuses from now on would be suspended, and that any member convicted of abuse would be removed.
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