¿The false North Korean mantras? Denuclearization, collapse of the regime and reunification

Abstract

This article analyses three issues that most analysts and researches have studied in their published documents and monographs: North Korea’s denuclearization, the future of the regime and a hypothetical reunification. In contrast to almost all documents mentioned, the author argues that North Korea’s nuclear programme is unstoppable; in fact, its interruption would probably entail a huge risk for the survival of the North Korean system, given that it constitutes a key element of its national and military security strategy. Similarly, the collapse of the regime has been anticipated since 1990 but it has not yet been materialized during the last 25 years. In this document, the author explains the reasons for the improbability of the regime’s collapse and, what is more, the consolidation of the third member of the Kim family. Finally, the document is sceptic concerning the analyses that predict that North Korea’s future will inevitably entail a reunification with the South, and the article argues that the survival of North Korea is likely; the country could evolve in many ways, but never through an absorption by the South. Therefore, this article attempts to contextualize and rebate the three mantras mentioned in its title: that North Korea must give up its nuclear program, that the regime will eventually collapse and, that, as a natural process, the North will be reunified with the South, eventuating in the latter being declared as a victor.