Kim Jong Il: It will be 911 times 2356. Chris: My God, that's... I don't even know what that is! Kim Jong Il: Nobody does!
My knowledge of the Koreas isn't that great. Out of curiosity, if a full feldged war were to break out, is North Korea more dominant? Even match?
NK would probably get steam-rolled. They exist because China props them up. If China were to come to NK's defense, the South would be in trouble. Unless the US backed them up -- then everybody in the whole world is in trouble. At this point, with China and the US playing much nicer with each other, and North Korea's economic situation getting ever more dire, I would think it'd be the humanitarian thing to do if China were to allow a reunification of the two Koreas. South Korea would take the brunt of the North's poverty, so China wouldn't have to worry about it so much.
North Korea's main threat is an extremely large number of artillery pieces hidden in all sorts of volcanic mountain nooks and crannies and pointing at Seoul. If war broke out, there would be an obscenely large number of civilian casualties. They've built a large number of tank traps and other obstacles that would make overrunning those artillery positions very difficult and slow. They have a much larger standing army that they could throw at the south to be slaughtered which would also slow things quite a bit.
So I guess we (Los Estados Unidos de Norteaméricap) are cool with China... and everything will turn to chaos when we trade Yao Ming?
I've done the DMZ tour out there. Apparently, the entire area north of the DMZ is one giant fortification filled with land mines and other artillery. The only way to take out Pyongyang would be through air attacks. Of course, any escalation with North Korea would result in Seoul immediately getting leveled, like you said. The wild card here is China and whether or not they'll back up KJ-Il. North Korea has one of the largest, most powerful militaries in the world, but much of their weaponry is old and outdated. They're also low on fuel and food, which are both essential during wartime. So if China doesn't back them up, NK will run out of munitions. Of course, there's always the chance of a mass defection by the Northern troops during an invasion. But, I don't think that's likely.
From what I have heard the relationship between North Korea and China haven't been good ever since the Sino-Soviet split, the only reason China is supporting them is because they don't want North Korean refugees streaming into China.
The main reason China is supporting N.Korea is because they want a buffer from western world. If the two Koreas were to unite, they would share a border with China. That's the main reason why China attacked during the Korean war. Beijing explicitly told Washington that then and it still holds true today. Otherwise China could care less about N.Korea. But what happened is f'ed up and needs a response. What S.Korea needs to do is a Mossad type reckoning on dear leader.
North Korea does not have the economic stability needed to maintain a steady war with any country. They would collapse from the inside out.
I may be getting out of my depth trying to think of China's strategic interests. But, I would think a reunification would turn the refugee stream to the South as North Korean refugees would prefer to flee to a Korean place, where they'd be legal to live, and may well have family. But, you could as easily switch it around and have China directly govern NK themselves and it'd still be better than what's going on now.
