# Does North Korea really still hope to reunify the Koreas? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 10, 2025, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-north-korea-really-still-hope-to-reunify-the-koreas/1025601 "2025-12-10T20:43:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2025, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-north-korea-really-still-hope-to-reunify-the-koreas/1025601/1 "2025-12-10T20:43:16Z")
(Great Debate because answers must largely be speculative. Mods, move if you see fit). Of course that’s the sacred ideology; indeed the regime couldn’t really do without a perpetual external enemy. But seriously in the dark of night, perhaps in their cups, does anyone in the Pyongyang leadership really think this is ever going to happen? Or that it would be wise to even try? After the fall of the Soviet Union, after what Kim and co. presumably regard as the apostasy of the current Chinese government, and with the great enemy of the USA as strong or stronger than ever, the inevitability of Communist revolution sounds like “next year in Jerusalem”. And if somehow by some miracle the peninsula could be united under the Great Leader– to what end? So that the regime would have about twice as much land area to go hungry in? With few seizable assets since almost all of South Korea’s wealth is in capitalist trade? With a population that would have to be imprisoned or killed Pol Pot style? Conquering the South would be like the dilemma of if a dog actually caught an automobile: then what? And it’s hard to believe that anyone but the most fanatical octogenarians in Pyongyang doesn’t know this. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2025, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-north-korea-really-still-hope-to-reunify-the-koreas/1025601/2 "2025-12-10T20:49:22Z")
I can’t imagine Kim Jong Un has any real desire to do so. I imagine he likes his cultish kingdom as is. No need to change anything. He’s happy and doesn’t care about much beyond that. I’d think South Korea would like to re-unify someday but it’s not likely to happen anytime soon and I am sure they get that. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2025, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-north-korea-really-still-hope-to-reunify-the-koreas/1025601/3 "2025-12-10T20:54:58Z")
Overall I agree w your thesis that it seems unlikely they can really think that. Assuming they’re grounded in reality even a little bit. (More later on this last) If the inner leadership realizes it’s a fools errand but, as you say a necessary bogeyman for their own hold on power, then it would start to make sense to them to slowly reduce their offensive capabilities along the DMZ. That shit is expensive and they could use the same resources elsewhere to better effect. Even if only the elite realize any of those benefits. An advantage to a very information-controlled society is that truth really is whatever the regime says it is. They could hollow out their offensive forces in reality while telling the public and most of the military that they’re growing in ferocity all the time. If we don’t see that economizing going on, that suggests they’re still serious. It can be hard to tell the difference between weapons intended to attack the South, weapons intended to defend against or respond to a southern attack on the North, and weapons intended to deter a southern attack on the North. But with careful work IMO we could in principal tease some of that out. It is very difficult for us to put ourselves in the mind of a NK senior leader. They have lived their whole life with their brain stuffed into a restrictive box. Call it “Banzai brain”, like the mini trees, not like the Japanese attack cry. Some ideas may be so outré as to genuinely be unthinkable even in the face of clear evidence that they should be thought about. ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2025, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-north-korea-really-still-hope-to-reunify-the-koreas/1025601/4 "2025-12-10T20:59:33Z")
I could argue it both ways: 1. Just as Lumpy lays out, having a perpetual set of enemies is an easy excuse for why things are so hard without the government/god-king being to blame. I expect most if not all of the quiet pragmatists benefitting from the status quo are thinking along those lines. 2. The fanatics and true believes, who _believe_ their own hype (and/or having no one to gainsay them) have the sort of magical thinking MAGA in the USA does. We defeat the _them_, and they’ll automatically then recognize our greatness and correctness, and will obediently conform to our standards (whatever they may be on a given day) and things will be magically better for all. All that said, regardless of the motivation, the situation itself remains the same. And I think the true believers are a huge minority and/or kept insulated from the facts to limit the damage. If a sufficient mass in North Korea were true believers, they’d be actively using nukes as blackmail. Of course, there’s the middle road (as always) where they believe if the can get sufficient resources (more or less conventional) and sufficient nuclear delivery options, then they could nuke a few targets, use the conventional military to crush the rest of the resistance, and hold the world at bay (something like Russia). Korea would be unified, killing the South Korean golden goose, but they’d still have the title, those at the top of the Regime wouldn’t care about the destruction to the south, and the North Korean populace could see that the “bad” people have it far worse and be more-or-less satisfied. Any ongoing issues would be blamed on a new former South Korean terrorists and continue the cycle of excuses, crackdowns, and control. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2025, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-north-korea-really-still-hope-to-reunify-the-koreas/1025601/5 "2025-12-10T21:00:31Z")
Realistically, I’m pretty sure the NK regime knows there’s zero chance. They may even have a hard enough time holding NK itself intact indefinitely in itself. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2025, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-north-korea-really-still-hope-to-reunify-the-koreas/1025601/6 "2025-12-10T21:02:55Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > I’d think South Korea would like to re-unify someday but it’s not likely to happen anytime soon and I am sure they get that. That’s a whole 'nother topic. One we’ve done a time or three and little about that dynamic has changed in 10-20 years. IMO the short version is the South is scared of an NK collapse at least as much as an NK attack. They simply can’t afford to absorb that many people and that much poverty all at once. The nearest historical parallel is East & West Germany’s reunification. But that was 1/10th as big and as hard as a peaceful NK/SK reunification would be. And unless China is imploding at the same time, the odds they’d sit on their hands while NK collapsed and SK stepped in for the rescue are very low. So a peaceful reunification is not impossible, but it’s not the way to bet. Nobody is happy with the status quo. But it’s the least unhappy way to get from today to tomorrow. So it endures. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2025, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-north-korea-really-still-hope-to-reunify-the-koreas/1025601/7 "2025-12-10T21:05:44Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > it would start to make sense to them to slowly reduce their offensive capabilities along the DMZ. That shit is expensive and they could use the same resources elsewhere to better effect. Even if only the elite realize any of those benefits. > > If we don’t see that economizing going on, that suggests they’re still serious. Probably the best factual answer possible. ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2025, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-north-korea-really-still-hope-to-reunify-the-koreas/1025601/8 "2025-12-10T21:11:28Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > I can’t imagine Kim Jong Un has any real desire to do so. I imagine he likes his cultish kingdom as is. No need to change anything. He’s happy and doesn’t care about much beyond that. I agree with this. All they have to do is keep-up the performative stuff for their prisoners, I mean population, and maintain the boogeyman, while controlling the media, and the status quo is maintained. Oh sure, the occasional saber-rattling is necessary to keep the enemy on it’s toes, ya know, a nuclear test here, an illegal flyover there - just to keep up appearances. South Korea has, what, about 50 million people, while the North has _half_ that. There is no way the North has the resources to either dispose-of or convert everyone to their way of life, and I doubt the South really wants to deal with reunification and then caring for and educating their malnourished and backward brethren. My vote is neither really want it to happen. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2025, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-north-korea-really-still-hope-to-reunify-the-koreas/1025601/9 "2025-12-10T21:20:47Z")
The word you want is _bonsai_. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2025, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-north-korea-really-still-hope-to-reunify-the-koreas/1025601/10 "2025-12-10T21:22:13Z")
D’oh! I was so busy thinking about the long gone “Bonsai kittens” joke website that I totally forgot to think about spelling. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2025, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-north-korea-really-still-hope-to-reunify-the-koreas/1025601/11 "2025-12-11T02:49:22Z")
My understanding is that the primary goal of the North Korean government is to maintain the survival of the North Korean government. What they do is done with that goal in mind. Invading south Korea would be a very quick way to destabilize the North Korean regime. When people in the North see how free and rich the South is, they will revolt. The south will fight to the death to not be enslaved to the evil Kim regime (they will not be greeted as liberators). South Korea has a vastly, vastly superior military that would decimate the north (South Korea produces and uses world class military hardware. North Korea has rusted out military hardware from 50 years ago). The US, Japan, etc would intervene to bring down North Korea. South Korea has also booby trapped their infrastructure to slow down a North Korean advance. North Korea cannot maintain the logistics for an invasion. North Korea’s goal from what I can tell is to be able to threaten the rest of the world with enough death and destruction that the world never tries to overthrow the regime. In between nuclear weapons, artillery pointed at Seoul, their special forces, chem/bio weapons, etc they want to make the world unwilling to pay the price to bring down the regime. The leaders of the current regime know their fate is torture, prison and/or death if the regime falls. Right now they have unchecked power and huge amounts of wealth. They aren’t going to risk that to take on a military vastly more competent than theirs. Thats why they are terrified to even contemplate reform. They know reform will empower the public, making it harder to keep the regime going. They’re stuck in a death cult where their only goal is to keep the North Korean people terrorized and helpless, and keep the rest of the world terrorized with threats of trillions in property damage, so nobody overthrows the government. ---
**Author:** ![Chad\_Sudan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chad_sudan/32/4509_2.png) [@Chad\_Sudan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chad_Sudan)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2025, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-north-korea-really-still-hope-to-reunify-the-koreas/1025601/12 "2025-12-11T04:09:25Z")
Concerning North Korea’s stated policy, there is a non-speculative answer to this question. Last year, Kim Jong Un had the Reunification Monument in Pyongyang torn down. [Here’s why:](https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/north-koreas-kim-calls-change-status-south-warns-war-2024-01-15/) > In a speech to the Supreme People’s Assembly, North Korea’s rubber-stamp parliament, Kim said he had concluded that unification with the South was no longer possible, and accused Seoul of seeking regime collapse and unification by absorption. > > Kim said the constitution should be amended to educate North Koreans that South Korea is a “primary foe and invariable principal enemy” and define the North’s territory as separate from the South… > > North Korea should also plan for “completely occupying, subjugating and reclaiming” South Korea in the event of a war, and South Koreans should also no longer be referred to as fellow countrymen, Kim added… So, no to “reunification,” yes to “occupying, subjugating and reclaiming.” (At least it’s an ethos.) ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2025, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-north-korea-really-still-hope-to-reunify-the-koreas/1025601/13 "2025-12-11T04:19:51Z")
Or at least laying the foundation for that reenactment of The Killing Fields I mentioned OP. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2025, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-north-korea-really-still-hope-to-reunify-the-koreas/1025601/14 "2025-12-11T04:22:06Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > The US, Japan, etc would intervene to bring down North Korea. And China would step in to save North Korea. They’ve done it before and I am sure they would do it again. Pretty sure NK counts on it. Hence no way the US/Japan/etc would ever get involved in that. That leaves China with a bat-shit insane country on their border but they prefer that to SK being on their border. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2025, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-north-korea-really-still-hope-to-reunify-the-koreas/1025601/15 "2025-12-11T11:35:50Z")
Overall I agree w you, but I’m not sure this bit is true. > [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > That leaves China with a bat-shit insane country on their border but they prefer that to SK being on their border. As I noted upthread, nobody loves the status quo, but they really hate the paths that lead to anything else. So here we all sit. IMO China wouldn’t much mind SK magic-wanded to encompass all of Korea prosperous and free. What they’d greatly mind is any realistic non-magic process that gets from here to there. For all the reasons you state. The collateral damage and uncertainty would be bad for Chinese business and bad for Chinese statecraft. Plus refugees. That may be pointless word-quibbles on my part, but at least to me it seems a distinction worth mentioning. These kinds of “ain’t nobody happy” situations are not stable. They’re meta-stable. Meaning if something about the situation changes enough, whether gradually or suddenly, then the whole house of unhappy cards spontaneously gets rearranged into something very different. It breaks, not bends. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2025, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-north-korea-really-still-hope-to-reunify-the-koreas/1025601/16 "2025-12-11T12:03:41Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > That leaves China with a bat-shit insane country on their border but they prefer that to SK being on their border. That was true once, but I’m not at all sure that it’s still true when that insane country has nuclear weapons. > [@LSLGuy](#): > > IMO China wouldn’t much mind SK magic-wanded to encompass all of Korea prosperous and free. What they’d greatly mind is any realistic non-magic process that gets from here to there. > > For all the reasons you state. The collateral damage and uncertainty would be bad for Chinese business and bad for Chinese statecraft. Plus refugees. Also, potential nuclear attack. A collapsing NK regime might well try nuclear blackmail to get China to help it, or destroy a few Chinese cities out of spite as it goes down. Which contributes to the unpleasant adherence to the status quo others have mentioned. NK is unlikely to nuke anyone, _as long as the leadership stays safely in power._ But if they think they are going down, who knows what an amoral, isolated and irrational leadership will do. It’s not worth gambling millions of lives to find out for China. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2025, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-north-korea-really-still-hope-to-reunify-the-koreas/1025601/17 "2025-12-11T14:50:52Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > And China would step in to save North Korea. They’ve done it before and I am sure they would do it again. Pretty sure NK counts on it. Hence no way the US/Japan/etc would ever get involved in that. That leaves China with a bat-shit insane country on their border but they prefer that to SK being on their border. If China did get involved, they would probably try to overthrow the Kim regime and convert North Korea into a vassal state run by Chinese friendly leaders. They wouldn’t try to reunify the two Koreas. And I don’t think China would risk global war to save the North Korean regime. Thats probably the best case scenario the world can look forward to on this issue. China somehow overthrows the Kim regime in North Korea (probably by giving funding and technical advice to people plotting a coup), and the new leaders answer to China. The new regime gives up WMD and focuses on reforms like the ones China underwent in 1978. I could see the US/Japan agreeing to not intervene if China pushes that solution. But even in that scenario, there won’t be a reunification of the two koreas. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2025, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-north-korea-really-still-hope-to-reunify-the-koreas/1025601/18 "2025-12-11T16:56:37Z")
It’s saying something that seeing North Korea turned into a puppet state of China would be an _improvement_ on the current situation. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2025, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-north-korea-really-still-hope-to-reunify-the-koreas/1025601/19 "2025-12-11T17:51:48Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > China somehow overthrows the Kim regime in North Korea (probably by giving funding and technical advice to people plotting a coup), and the new leaders answer to China. The new regime gives up WMD and focuses on reforms like the ones China underwent in 1978. I could see the US/Japan agreeing to not intervene if China pushes that solution. There are a number parallels there to how the Russians stage-managed the early Ukrainian regimes immediately post the demise of the USSR. Then the Ukrainians decided they’d rather have a less puppety government. A lot of history has happened since. Much of it unpleasant for the participants. I suspect a Chinese-dominated NK puppet government would last only a couple decades before its wheels started to fall off somehow. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2025, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-north-korea-really-still-hope-to-reunify-the-koreas/1025601/20 "2025-12-11T22:42:24Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > If China did get involved, they would probably try to overthrow the Kim regime and convert North Korea into a vassal state run by Chinese friendly leaders. I doubt that because again, nukes. Kim under those circumstances would _definitely_ order a nuclear attack on China, and invasion risks the possibility of nuclear mines. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-north-korea-really-still-hope-to-reunify-the-koreas/1025601.md?page=2)