U.S. soldiers take part in a joint military drill with South Korean soldiers north of Seoul in early June. KIM JIN-TAE / AFP / GettyFrom Time Magazine:
To fear a new Korean War is historically inaccurate, because, in fact, the last one never ended: the world's most dangerous border, across which some 2 million North Korean, U.S. and South Korean troops face each other along the 38th parallel of the Korean Peninsula is, in fact, simply an armistice line. On July 27, 1953, the U.S. and North Korea signed a truce pausing, but not ending, a war that claimed more than 2 million lives, including those of 36,940 U.S. troops. And the North's recent nuclear and missile saber-rattling has many growing nervous about the potential for a resumption of hostilities.
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My Comment: The North Koreans know that it is only a question of when .... not if .... the Communist regime will fail. The South Koreans also know this, and have been biding their time with the belief that the North will come to some acceptance that unification will occur with the South holding the levers of power.
What can change all of this is the unpredictability of dictators and their messianic followers .... a condition that North Korea holds in spades. This sense of arrogance and entitlement is what afflicts the current leadership in North Korea .... and it is this sense of entitlement and arrogance that can provoke a war with the South. The South Koreans are no longer subservient to the Americans or anyone else, and any attack on them will be met in force. Does the North know this ... probably not .... and that is where the danger lies.