The world’s most important divided nation, Korea, hosts one of the world’s most volatile international confrontations. Renewed conflict there could be as intense as the ongoing Russian–Ukrainian war, potentially drawing in the United States, China, Russia, and Japan. Healing the division that led to the Korean War would be the most obvious way to preempt a military rerun—this time with nuclear weapons.
Germany’s experience demonstrates the great benefits of reversing artificial national divisions resulting from, and threatening to restart, conflict. Indeed, German reunification was the single event that most dramatically illustrated the end of the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
Unfortunately, the possibility of Korean reunification is looking ever more like an impossible dream. Even as ROK President Lee Jae Myung has feverishly sought to open a dialogue with North Korea’s supreme leader Kim Jong Un, the South Korean people have become ever more skeptical about a thaw in relations with the North, let alone reunification. According to a recent survey:
42.4% of respondents identified North Korea as a ‘hostile entity threatening our safety,’ a 16.8 percentage point increase from 25.6% in the 2015 survey. Conversely, those viewing North Korea as a ‘cooperative partner to unite with’ dropped from 43.5% to 30.8%, a 12.7 percentage point decline. While the ‘cooperative partner’ response was higher than the ‘hostile entity’ in 2015, the trend reversed this time.
A majority of South Koreans under 30 viewed the North as hostile, more than any other age cohort. Although most people favored seeking an inter-Korean summit, few viewed it as an urgent objective. Moreover, 43.2 percent of South Koreans considered reunification to be impossible, up from just 14 percent a decade ago. The reasons for this broad shift are several: “North Korea’s advanced nuclear and missile development, deepening military cooperation with Russia, and the prolonged suspension of inter-Korean dialogue.”
Nevertheless, a majority of South Koreans believe that their nation would benefit from reunification. The top reasons, in their view, would be to “‘to leap forward as an advanced nation’ (46.1%), followed by ‘resolving war threats’ (29.3%).” In fact, ending war threats might be the most important means to move the country forward.
Although rising South Korean skepticism of reunification dims its prospects, North Korean intransigence poses an even greater barrier. Dealing with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, essentially a communist monarchy, has become increasingly difficult since the collapse of the 2019 Hanoi summit between President Donald Trump and Kim. The latter responded by largely severing contact with both the U.S. and the Republic of Korea. Since then, Kim has concentrated on expanding his nuclear arsenal and missile capabilities. Pyongyang has also become an important ally of Moscow, providing weapons and personnel for use against Ukraine. Russia has supplied abundant largesse in return, causing Beijing to compete by warming its own ties with Kim. North Korea may be at its greatest ever geopolitical strength.
Moreover, Kim has directed a sharp shift away from the North’s traditional policy of treating the Koreas as one, with the South under de facto U.S. occupation. In 2023, he formally termed the ROK a separate and “belligerent” entity and reunification to be “impossible.” He then destroyed the famed “unification arch” in Pyongyang in order “to completely eliminate such concepts as ‘reunification,’ ‘reconciliation,’ and ‘fellow countrymen’ from the national history of our Republic.” While this approach doesn’t preclude a future U-turn toward unity, it suggests that the North is most likely to advance such a move through absorption, which in practice would mean military conquest.
Popular attitudes in the North are harder to assess but matter much less. Increasing access to information about the South likely has created a substantial, though unexpressed, recognition of the benefits of uniting the two Koreas. The government’s inward turn, enforced through increased repression, has reduced this information flow, though the effectiveness of government propaganda is unclear. In contrast, Kim and other regime elites, who stand to lose their privileges if the DPRK disappears, are most likely to oppose being “swallowed,” as North Korean diplomats put it to me.
How to promote Korean unification today? With Seoul in the lead, the allies should encourage peaceable relations with the DPRK. This appears to be the South’s current approach. According to Deutsche Welle:
In a clear departure from his predecessor, Yoon Suk Yeol, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has adopted a softer stance on North Korea during his first seven months in office, offering carrots rather than sticks to the regime in Pyongyang. The change became obvious in recent weeks as Seoul pushed multiple initiatives to reopen communication channels and build trust with North Korea.
Lee has sought to more closely coordinate policy toward the DPRK by the defense, foreign, and unification ministries, creating an interagency “security ministers’ meeting.” He also reversed the name change by Yoon from North Korea Policy Division to North Korea Strategy Division, which had been meant to emphasize sanctions on the North. As an unnamed Lee official explained to NK News: “The North Korea Policy Division will focus on key tasks such as developing negotiation strategies and measures for military talks, managing the meetings and supporting the delegations.” Jihoon Yu of the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses expects the agency to be “focused on cooperation with North Korea,” as it was under Yoon’s predecessor.
Although Lee has at times appeared to be overeager, even desperate, for talks, thereby enhancing Kim’s leverage, Unification Minister Chung Dong-young seems more realistic: “The South and the North are in fact two states, and from the standpoint of international law they are also two states.” He added that “at least 50–60% of South Korean citizens” view North Korea as a separate nation, though he emphasized: “This does not mean that division is eternal. What we are talking about is more flexible relations between the two Koreas, based on practical and realistic considerations.”
The Trump administration should also press for a more normal relationship with Pyongyang. Although Kim may feel little need to accommodate Washington, Trump should point out that his own future successor—who will take over just three years from now—might be less inclined to engage. Moreover, once fighting in Ukraine ends, Moscow is likely to again turn away from the North, having previously largely ignored its erstwhile ally, especially after the Soviet Union dissolved—in which case China, too, might lose interest in the DPRK.
Of course, voluntary reunification has always seemed unlikely, given the significant differences between the two Koreas. As noted earlier, Kim’s policies make reunification even more problematic. Hence, Washington and Seoul, along with Tokyo, should develop contingency plans for a North Korean collapse or transformation. Of course, predictions of Pyongyang’s imminent demise, dating back to the disastrous famine in the 1990s, believed to have killed at least a half million people, have gone unfulfilled for almost three decades. The Kim dynasty appears to be reasonably secure today, with support from both China and Russia.
Nevertheless, Kim’s health remains uncertain, peace between Russia and Ukraine could reduce the North’s outside support, and domestic North Korean elites could decide that survival requires a change in regime. The DPRK’s neighbors, backed by the U.S., should be ready to respond. The most immediate priorities would be avoiding conflict with China, securing nuclear weapons, and meeting humanitarian needs. Longer term, important steps would be promoting a peaceful transition to a liberal, democratic system, as well as reunification, if that is what the Korean people want.
Reunification would offer the best path forward. It would speed economic development and political transformation of what is now the North. Moreover, it would make denuclearization more likely, eliminating the nuclear (North) Korea as well as the strongest case for the other (South) Korea to go nuclear. A new, united Korea might be tempted to keep the weapons that it inherited from the DPRK, but that would still be better than an increasingly belligerent nuclear North.
Nevertheless, reunification is not guaranteed. The German experience caused South Koreans to worry about the cost of integrating the North. As noted earlier, younger South Koreans feel little connection to the DPRK and have even less desire to accept the cost of uniting. Moreover, the two Koreas’ neighbors might well obstruct a process that would create a more powerful competitor and even rival.
Engaging China would be particularly important, since it could act—and even intervene militarily—to preserve a buffer state by preventing unification. That would create the possibility of confrontation between the PRC and a Washington-backed ROK. Beijing is more likely to act if it believes the result of unification will be a united Korea allied with the U.S. and hosting American forces as part of an American containment network. Seoul should advance informal discussions as to Beijing’s attitude, and to determine what concessions, such as a promise of military neutrality and American withdrawal, might be necessary to assuage the PRC.
More than seven decades after the end of the Korean War, a united, democratic, and free Korea is long overdue. The future of the Korean peninsula is up to the Korean people. However, the U.S. should support their aspirations, whatever the result, and help make reunification a reality if that is what they desire.
Read the full article here
