IMHO, one way to see how this situation will develop in mid- to long- term perspective is to look at interests of China and, to a lesser degree, Russia. If Chi

IMHO, one way to see how this situation will develop in mid- to long- term perspective is to look at interests of China and, to a lesser degree, Russia. If China wants Taiwan more than it wants to have an argument to bring up during currency negotiations, they'd be inclined to make a deal: control over TW for control over NK, in one form or the other. If the currency negotiations are more valuable to them, they'd be inclined to keep the status quo, within some reasonable limits. There maybe some other interests worth looking at, which I'm missing. Russia wants an upper hand in European missile shield negotiations. There's also a Russia-Japan situation, where both countries are still in de-jure state of war, and they've been positioning themselves recently to finally sign the peace treaty. It's worth noting that Russia's role in this conflict seems to be smaller than China's. There's a new perspective is opening up with a new Supreme Leader taking over any time now. He has not seen the war, neither he has seen much of human suffering, and that's a dangerous trait to have while having control over nuclear weapons. To me, this is the scariest part of the puzzle.