North Korean leader Kim Jong-un stands and applauds. REUTERS

The North Korean Threat: Where Do We Go From Here?

After its latest test of a long-range rocket, the nuclear threat from North Korea has re-emerged as a major global challenge

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By David Maxwell on Feb 12, 2016 at 11:45 AM

http://www.vocativ.com/news/283367/the-north-korean-threat-where-do-we-go-from-here

Here is the bottom line: The only way that we will have an end to the nuclear and missile programs as well as the human atrocities and crimes against humanity being perpetrated against the Korean people living in the north by the mafia-like crime family cult known as the Kim Family Regime is through a unification process that leads to a united republic of Korea.

That is a tall order. Unification is the only way to settle the “Korea Question.” Unification will be hard and will most likely be achieved after the expenditure of much blood and treasure from the Republic of Korea, the United States and regional powers. It will be complex because the path to attain it is uncertain and fraught with danger.

There are four paths to unification: peaceful, regime collapse, war or internal regime change that results in new leadership that seeks to peacefully unify. Each of these paths conflicts with the single vital national interest of North Korea: survival of the Kim Family Regime. Everything the regime does is focused on this objective. It overrides all other considerations to include the welfare of the Korean people living in the north. It also explains why the North Korean nuclear and missile programs are so important and why the regime will never negotiate them away.

The regime believes in nuclear weapons for two critically important reasons. First, that they deter attack from the South and the U.S. The regime believes that the U.S. will never attack another country with nuclear weapons. It looks to the examples of Iraq and Libya and what happens to a regime that does not have nuclear weapons (and the Libyan example is especially important because Qaddafi gave up his weapons willingly). The second reason is that nuclear weapons support its overall objective of keeping the regime alive. Blackmail diplomacy is simply the use of threats and actual provocations to gain political and economic concessions. A nuclear weapon is the largest threat in its arsenal. This has been a key element of its strategy for nearly seven decades and it has been employed regularly since 1994 with great effect.

More The Long, Terrifying History of North Korea’s Missile Testing

Now in 2016 the regime has conducted its fourth nuclear test and a third attempted satellite launch. It has restarted its nuclear reactor and this will allow it to increase its plutonium stockpiles. There is speculation that a fifth nuclear test may occur. The regime follows what it calls the byungjin line—the simultaneous pursuit of nuclear weapons and economic development. The North Korean constitution states that it is a nuclear-armed nation. It should be clear even to the casual observer that the regime has no intention of giving up its nuclear program. The ROK, the U.S. and the international community have attempted a broad range of actions from unreciprocated engagement to hardline policies to the current strategy of ignoring the regime with the unofficial title of “strategic patience.” We have been unable to co-opt or coerce the regime because of its belief that nuclear weapons are key to its survival. At the same time some 25 million Koreans living in the north suffer unbelievable hardships, including many abuses outlined in the United Nations Commission of Inquiry report on human rights in North Korea.

Why does North Korea appear to be accelerating its provocative actions? There are myriad reasons. First, it may simply be necessary to test its weapons and missile delivery systems to advance their programs to the next level. It may be that these tests are focused on internal audiences, both the elite and the general population, to reinforce the North Korean narrative that it is a power to be reckoned with in the international community and that it must defend itself from external aggression. This could be part of Kim Jong-un’s consolidation of power.

Another reason for the recent provocations may be that the regime is trying to establish a “new normal” for its nuclear posture during the next two years as both the U.S. and ROK transition to new administrations in 2017 and 2018. Just as it executed what some call “creeping normalcy” in the 1970’s and 1980’s when it repositioned its conventional military forces, increasing its frontline forces to 70 percent over time, this could be their attempt to conduct a “nuclear creeping normalcy” with the intent to be recognized as a nuclear power when the new administrations come into office.

(Continued at the link below)

http://www.vocativ.com/news/283367/the-north-korean-threat-where-do-we-go-from-here

The South seeks unification by integration and consensus.  We should keep in mind that the north seeks unification by force and domination.

I would recommend that the ROK pursue this as an end state as part of its overt strategy but of course even this would be unacceptable to the Kim Family Regime:

• A stable, secure, peaceful, economically vibrant, non-nuclear peninsula, reunified under a liberal constitutional form of government determined by the Korean people.

S. Korea does not seek unification by absorption: official

http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/northkorea/2015/01/13/41/0401000000AEN20150113005700315F.html

2015/01/13 14:13

SEOUL, Jan. 13 (Yonhap) -- South Korea has no intention of absorbing North Korea as a way to unify the two Koreas, but it will seek to achieve unification peacefully and in a step-by-step manner, a Seoul official said Tuesday.

The remark by the official of the Ministry of Unification, which deals with inter-Korean affairs, was made in response to the North's repeated criticisms of President Park Geun-hye's unification policy.

Last Thursday, the North's National Defense Commission demanded the South come up with a clear stance on unification, asking whether Seoul is willing to have a peaceful unification or stick to ideological confrontations.

"Our government is not seeking unification by abortion as the North claims," the ministry official said. "The incumbent government is on the same line of previous governments' unification policy, which seeks unification (of the Koreas) in a gradual and step-by-step manner, based on autonomy, peace and democracy," the official noted.

The government's stance is that the two Koreas should first built trust through dialogue and cooperation for the phase-in of unification because the South and the North currently suffer a lack of trust and dialogue, the official added.

Since President Park's inauguration in 2013, she has highlighted efforts to expedite preparations for unification, with the North accusing Park of advocating unification through the absorption of the communist country into the capitalist system.

The official also repeated the ministry's intention to intervene in a local activist group's provocative campaign to send DVDs of an anti-Pyongyang film in balloons across the border. The U.S. comedy "The Interview" revolves around a plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

The local group is planning to launch balloons carrying the DVDs to the North in a campaign meant to spread dissenting messages in the reclusive country later in the month.

"We plan to ask them to make a wise choice (to stop) to prevent any risks that can be posed on the life and property of citizens at the border area," the official said.

The North has previously threatened to retaliate against anti-North campaigns.

pbr@yna.co.kr

(END)

I outline what I think are  the four broad paths to Korean unification at this link. http://icks.org/publication/pdf/2014-SPRING-SUMMER/7.pdf

Is Peaceful Korean Unification Possible?

By THE EDITORIAL BOARDDEC. 11, 2014

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/12/opinion/is-peaceful-korean-unification-possible.html

After decades of dreaming of a reunified North and South Korea, many South Koreans, young people in particular, now see unification as irrelevant or too costly. This gives urgency to the effort by Park Geun-hye, president of South Korea, to boost domestic support for unification and lay the practical groundwork to make it happen.

The dream is at once quixotic and prudent. On the one hand, it is hard to imagine the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, voluntarily giving up his family-run dictatorship. On the other, recent Middle East history has shown how quickly borders can shift and regimes can crumble. If that should happen on the Korean Peninsula, leaders there and elsewhere in the region must be prepared to manage a hugely complex and disruptive transition.

As part of her initiative, Ms. Park has named a 50-member commission — including private-sector experts, government officials and the heads of six state-run research institutes — to develop a vision of what a unified Korea might look like, as well as road maps for getting there. In the best case, peaceful reunification would reunite long-separated families, free 24 million North Koreans from dictatorship, enhance regional security and eliminate North Korea’s nuclear threat. Unfortunately, other outcomes seem more likely: the continuation of the present hostile impasse, or, conceivably, the violent collapse of the North Korean regime.

A key player in the peninsula’s future will be China, the North’s chief political patron and the source of its fuel and food imports. Fearful of chaos on its border, China has long refused to exert the kind of pressure that would force radical change in Pyongyang. But China has recently shown more willingness to listen to South Korea on the unification issue, a good sign since Beijing’s cooperation in managing that process would be essential.

Ms. Park is the latest South Korean president to push for unification. But as the differences between the countries harden and younger generations of South Koreans lose interest, she may also be the last.

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A version of this editorial appears in print on December 12, 2014, on page A34 of the New York edition with the headline: Is Peaceful Korean Unification Possible?. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe