User blog comment:Jeremiah Garland/Discussion Blog: North Korea/@comment-7379056-20130330185939/@comment-3112181-20130330232754

America is not on top anymore. I know several like to believe the US is "the most powerful nation in the world", and that entitles them to simply "destroy North Korea". But, as Bobby Moon said below, it is not a matter of who invades who or who bombs who first; politics is a very fragile art. As far as I know, the UN hasn't done much to prevent North Korea and their supposed plans, but logically, North Korea is still allowed to have nuclear weapons since they backed out of the NPT in the early '90s. As for China, which side they'd take in an unlimited nuclear warfare is very 50-50. Same with Russia, and to an extent, India and Pakistan (all of whom are in possession of a sizable amount of nuclear warheads). Even Israel's status as a regional power in the Middle East has been declining, as we can from their recent not-so-successful handling of the Palestinian issue. Even still, Israel is one of those countries that can legally hold nuclear warheads, whilst Iran is not; so the former would likely be the first to receive UN backing.