Editor’s note: This is the second in Andrei Lankov’s series on unification scenarios. To see the first installment click here.

As we have said before, all attempts to predict the future are liable to result in error. Be that as it may, there seem to be three likely futures in store for North Korea.

First, it is not impossible that Kim Jong Un (or perhaps even some other member of the North Korean elite) will manage to follow the path trodden by a number of East Asian countries over the last 70 years – the path of “developmental dictatorship.” Such a model, once pioneered by South Korea and Taiwan, and currently employed by China and Vietnam, implies a combination of an export-driven market economy (admittedly, with a great deal of government intervention) and authoritarian politics. For a number of reasons, this form of government will encounter far more trouble in North Korea than similar regimes in neighboring countries. In North Korea, maintaining stability and achieving a decent level of economic growth will be a daunting task. However, daunting does not mean impossible.

China is increasingly willing to accept Korean unification under Seoul’s control

The second option is the emergence of some kind of pro-Chinese vassal state in the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Such a pro-Chinese regime might emerge as a result of an internal crisis, with a Chinese intervention to control possible chaos and/or prevent unification of Korea under Seoul’s auspices. It can also come into being as a result of other developments – a coup in Pyongyang, for example. In the last year or two, it has become apparent that China is increasingly willing to accept Korean unification under Seoul’s control. Thus, a Chinese intervention appears less likely at the time of writing then, say, it appeared five years ago. But our timeframe is not just years, but decades, so things can move either way.

The third, and probably most likely option, is unification by absorption, as a result of a North Korean collapse. As we have said, such an option is not necessarily the most attractive one. As a matter of fact, it is going to be messy, costly and perhaps bloody. But it is clearly not impossible, and hence we should not neglect to study it.

It is often argued that the Kim family regime is unlikely to collapse because the North Korean elite is united and the country has basically no independent civil groups – while also having a very efficient and brutal security system. This indeed might be the case, but we should not forget that many repressive dictatorships ended in collapse, many emperors have been dethroned and many a despot eventually taken to the gallows amid popular rage or elite coup. So given the great external pressures that the regime faces in the form of its affluent and (relatively) liberal neighbors, especially the filthy rich South Koreans, such an outcome is by no means impossible, or even that unlikely in North Korea.

There are reasons why many on the southern side of the DMZ are nowadays less enthusiastic about such an outcome than they were in the past. The economic burden of post-unification reconstruction is the main reason, but there are also fears that a violent transition will be fraught with risks and pain. Unfortunately, these fears are justified.

Regardless of how a North Korean crisis (or should we say revolution?) might begin, it is unlikely to be bloodless. The problem is the existence of a significant and relatively united minority who have good reason to believe that they will not have any future if the current regime goes. In Assad’s Syria, where the government has shown remarkable resilience, it is the Shia Alawites, along with their Christian and other minority allies, that have good reason to be fearful of majority Sunni rule. So they fight, and do this damn well.

North Korea is not a country with strong tribal or religious differences (as a matter of fact, it basically has none). It still has a potential minority, however, with a vested interest in the survival of the Kim clan or, at the very least, a separate North Korean state. These people are members of the current elite, who together with their families, number between 1 and 2 million people – or about 5-10 percent of the country’s population. They are a minority, but they have power, social skills, access to arms and an understanding that they are cornered. And they believe that after the end of the regime all of them will find themselves in jail or hanging from the lampposts, while their families are likely to face a lifetime of discrimination.

ANOTHER CHINESE INVASION?

Their resistance will be made all the more determined by the hopes that they are likely to entertain about China. If the system is crumbling and North Korea is plunged into mayhem, somewhat similar to Libya and Syria, these people are likely to entertain the hope that the Chinese will arrive to save their bacon. A pro-Beijing government in Pyongyang is likely to be staffed by the officials of the Kim family. Some most notorious individuals might be removed, shot or allowed to move into exile in, say, Macao, but for the average North Korean factory manager, military colonel or even professor in the humanities (read “Juche philosophy” or “party history”), the chances of prospering under a Beijing-backed client regime appear to be significantly higher than under Seoul-dominated North.

It remains an open question whether such a Chinese intervention will actually happen in case of crisis – actually, at the time of writing, given the current state of relations between China and South Korea, such chances are not high. However, at any rate, if crisis strikes the North Korean elite will fight the revolutionaries because they are afraid of any alternatives to the current regime.

Violent chaos in North Korea is liable to produce a power vacuum that will have to be filled by neighboring countries – and the United States, the global hegemon, by definition everybody’s neighbor. Korea is no Somalia, where anarchy has persisted for three decades. Korea is located in a highly developed region, where any instability or violence will not be tolerated for long. Mountainous terrain is not a good environment for military operations, but the country’s size and location still makes the projection of power much easier than it was in other comparable cases.

NUCLEAR DETERRENT – OR INCENTIVE

There is an additional factor that makes more likely a foreign military intervention into possible chaos, and this factor is the North Korean nuclear program. So long as the country has a reasonably stable government, however inefficient and brutal, this program is a powerful deterrent, safeguarding it from any foreign attack. However, once the center starts to fall apart, North Korea’s nuclear program all but guarantees that neighboring countries will send troops to at least secure nuclear installations and ensure that nuclear equipment and personnel do not fall into the wrong hands.

Frankly, if things were to reach such a point, such an intervention would serve the interests of the vast majority of people living on this planet, but it is still risky and liable to be messy, especially if one takes into account the absence of the reliable intelligence about North Korea’s nuclear installations.

… recent events and growing tensions between Washington and Beijing do not make one all that optimistic

The major variable in all this is relations between the countries that have both the reason and ability to intervene. Right now, such countries are South Korea, China and the United States, with Russia being a relatively improbable but still not completely impossible player (as its recent adventures in Syria have demonstrated). So the major problem that is likely to determine how dangerous the likely future crisis is going to be is relations between the major players, and/or their willingness to come to terms about who will do what. If South Korea, China and the United States are on good terms during North Korean endgame, one can imagine a solution.

However, recent events and growing tensions between Washington and Beijing do not make one all that optimistic in that regard. The issue of nuclear control is deadly serious, in the most literal sense. The history has shown us many examples of cooperation in the face of mortal threat, but also a number of cases where nations and parties could not leave their petty rivalries and clashes of ambition even when their survival was in the balance. Thus, we cannot rule out that a crisis in North Korea might trigger a massive political, diplomatic and even quasi-military confrontation between some of the above-mentioned three (or four?) players.

Another issue is the fate of refugees. As recent events in Europe have once again demonstrated, such a war might prompt 10-20 percent of the population to flee. In the North Korean case, one should expect movements to both South Korea and China.

It is often argued that the DMZ is difficult to cross. To an extent, this is true, but only so long as it is guarded from the northern side. If control of the DMZ starts to fall apart, the only way to stop crowds of refugees fleeing south is to shoot at them. Fortunately, no South Korean government would sanction such mass murder.

Another country that will likely be hit by refugees flow is China. North Korea’s border with China is easier and safer to cross, but traveling from the major population centers of Korea to the Chinese border might be difficult and risky. So for the people of Pyongyang and Kaesong, South Korea still constitutes a more attractive destination.

At any rate, expect a serious mess. And even if the international community finds a way to resolve all the major issues at hand and sanction a South Korean takeover of the North, a unified Korea will meet a great number of challenges that will be discussed in further pieces.

Given this, and other problems, it is not surprising that many South Korean public intellectuals and journalists recently learned a new mantra: “Unification by absorption is impossible.” This mantra is popular and oft-repeated in South Korea today, but it is unfounded. Indeed, unification by absorption is highly risky and costly, and might lead to all kinds of extremely painful consequences, but it is far from impossible. History has taught us that many dangerous and painful things, from war and revolution to epidemics, have happened, in spite of the fact that nobody seemingly wanted them to happen. So, instead of repeating such fatuous mantras, it is better to be clear and cognizant about what such a scenario will bring for the Korean people and everybody else who is somehow connected to the Land of Morning Calm.

Main picture: E. Lafforgue