Military Review English Edition September-October 2016 | Page 10

North Korean
Collapse
or Korean
Reunification
The Importance of
Preparation over
Prediction
Bryan Port

K

orea is of tremendous importance to U.S.
national security and economic prosperity.
Unfortunately, most Americans do not closely
follow developments in Korea despite the high stakes
involved—stakes that include the safety of over one
hundred thousand Americans in South Korea (t he
Republic of Korea, or ROK), hundreds of thousands of
American jobs tied to exports to the ROK, and tens of
billions of dollars invested there. Americans likely would
lose their lives, jobs, or property in the earliest hours of
a conflict in Korea. Further, a conflict would alter the
regional balance of power and have strategic implications
for the United States. The manner in which the United
States participated in a potential conflict, particularly
related to Korean reunification, would affect whether
the United States was able to sustain the leading role
it plays in northeast Asia and to continue reaping the
many associated economic and security benefits. The
effects of a collapse of the North Korean government or
of reunification of the two Koreas would be so profound
that they demand strategies, policies, plans, decisions,
and actions to prepare the United States and the ROK to
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secure their interests
and shape the strategic environment that
would follow.1
North Korea
(the Democratic
People’s Republic of
Korea or DPRK) presents a severe and growing threat
to American interests. It directly threatens the lives of
Americans and the citizens of our allies, develops and
proliferates weapons of mass destruction (WMD),
and commits extensive human rights abuses. Most
Americans are aware of the DPRK’s efforts to develop
nuclear weapons and long-range missiles, and they often
hear of its “strange” leaders. However, few understand
the DPRK’s enduring conventional military threat
and the destruction it could inflict on the ROK and,
to a growing extent, the WMD threat it presents to
the United States. It is even more difficult to grasp the
consequences of the collapse of the DPRK’s government.
While the prospects of a large loss of American lives is
less in a collapse scenario, a collapse would nonetheless
September-October 2016  MILITARY REVIEW