It doesn’t matter, because we’ll know when that day is long before even the NK personnel assigned to execute it find out.
That’s why it never happens - they know we know. 
Leaving aside the very unlikely hypothetical, it seems almost impossible for North Korea to survive the war intact. Even as militarized as they are, South Korea is one of the most heavily fortified nations on Earth - and it is fortified in depth. Even an entire slate of genius commanders might not be able to pull off a victory with North Korea’s resources, but even if they somehow did, North Korea could not possibly control South Korea. Technically “winning” the war would only be the first impossible task, because the now-battered and thin-spread North Korean army could not remotely occupy the south.
Even if somehow they tried to do so, they’d face guerrilla war start to finish, and that’s a war they can’t win.They simply don’t have the resources to carry that on. I mean, sure, it’s possible. But it would require North Korea to have an entire swath of leaders who are 100% committed to the cause to the point of taking insanely suicidal risks, those leaders also being absurdly capable administrators and generals, and having the most skilled army on the planet to win with.
Even if somehow all of this happened, I’d expect the North to collapse before they could successfully subjugate the South.
I wonder if, in general, a populace that is well-fed, accustomed to a high standard of living, and very high-tech and into social media, is easier to conquer and subjugate, or less easy. Unaccustomed to hardship= easier controlled or less controlled? Is ISIS having a hard or easy time dealing with people in the Iraqi or Syrian regions than it would, say, if its populace were highly Westernized?
Without fighting the highly impossible OP, part of it depends on how badly damaged the countries are at the end of the conflict. Mostly intact? Mostly rubble?
If it’s mostly rubble, then we would see North Korea on a much larger scale, sort of like what the Khmer Rouge did to Cambodia. If the factories in the southern part are trashed then the North Korean leadership wouldn’t have much incentive to attempt to rebuild.
If it’s mostly intact, then it would be a more interesting question. How would the Northerners attempt to nationalize all of those various enterprises. How could they maintain control? Obviously China would be much, much more interested in helping manage the country.
We would see tension between Greater Korea and Japan skyrocket. Expect Japan to go nuclear really, really quickly. If uninformed speculation on the internet has any basis in reality, Japan is ready to develop such weapons in a very short time span.
Just a general note on the economic effects of reunification of the Korean peninsula. It would drag the former South Korean economy into the gutter. It look more than a decade for the German economy to gain steam, and the Koreans are much worse off. West Germany and East Germany had a 3:1 ratio in population and the GDP difference wasn’t anywhere near what the Koreas see. South Korea in only twice the size of the North and the former has absolutely no technical infrastructure.
It would be that we would see a mixture of South Korean consumer technology helping North Korean aims of disrupting the world. Who knows? Maybe the Samsung Note 7 was a test run of this strategy.
Good points. I think the more intact South Korea is captured, the more interesting the hypothetical becomes.
Makes me wonder if it is more far-fetched than the Confederacy conquering the North.
As mentioned it would have to be to have much chance. But I don’t see how it’s relevant to your idea of the US ‘refusing to fight to drive a Hyundai’ after another Korean War starts. The US would have to make that decision before it starts. You seem to suggest the US would know that somehow. That seems a doubtful assumption to count on. And if, contrary to all indications, the US somehow reads the NK regime’s decision making in real time, there’s no way any random poster on a web forum is going to convince anyone they are the ones who know that.
I know, but two things. ‘Anger’ as ‘part of the Korean character’ tends in practice to be aimed at Japanese, for specific historical reasons. Having lived in Korea and speaking the language passably, I don’t agree that Koreans are particularly angry in general compared to anyone else. But the stereotype of Koreans being anti-Japanese is pretty accurate, and ironically (and disturbingly IMO) more true of the younger than older generations though one would think it would be the other way. Likewise IME in Japan (having lived there also), countervailing negative stereotypes of Koreans are pretty common, so my tongue in cheek comment about relying on Japanese to tell you about Koreans, or vice versa.
And like a lot of both Korean and Japanese ‘unique’ things, this particular form of the phoneme han (한) is the Chinese character 恨. It really means something so different in Korean than Chinese? Well maybe the Koreans say so, in some nuanced sense but in any simple to explain sense…not really, Chinese characters tend to mean basically what they mean across Chinese, Korean and Japanese. Likewise IME Japanese say a lot of things they adapted from the Chinese are instead unique to them. Japan and Korea have that in common, for all their difficulty getting along.
I suppose you could infer and extrapolate some ever more fanciful scenario, but I never said that. The U’S’ presence in Korea is a token force with a big punch and an even more powerful, swiftly reacting reach-back capability.
Are we going to use it to start WWIII? Not in a million years, not for a Hyundai or anything else. What it is being used for is to keep the DPRK in check. Just a little Far East detente going on, that is all. If the shit somehow did hit the fan, then no refusal to fight, just an orderly rear-guard action and evacuation, if necessary. It won’t ever be necessary. The cost to kick us out is too high.
That’s the fun thing about playing “what i.f” You can’t really be wrong, if you have a clue or 2 The OP’s premise is so close to being outside the realm of possibility, it hardly deserves consideration.
The OP what if is far fetched, that’s not at issue in your exchange with me. My point to you is and has been the complete baselessness of your fanciful idea the US military contingent in South Korea (I suppose you include all the dependent families too?) could somehow evacuate intact after a war started with the North Koreans assuming the US-ROKA side was being defeated. No way, heavy losses or complete destruction of those forces.
What makes you think there are a significant number of American dependents in Korea?
We’ve discussed time-travel, far-fetched WWII hypotheticals, Revolutionary War hypotheticals, mind-reading ability, zombies, kaiju/Godzilla hypotheticals, what-if-the-Earth’s-features-were-vastly-different hypotheticals, sci-fi technology, bodies-and-minds-being-swapped hypotheticals, here on the SDMB.
Not sure what makes a thread about North Korea conquering South Korea that much more far-fetched in comparison.
You would have to spend some time there to understand.
Dope-speak doesn’t it cut it on the topic of Korea, for me at least.
Unsubscribing…