Never Fit For The Split: Korean Peninsula In 2024 - Forecast

Barely two weeks into 2024, tensions on the Korean Peninsula are rapidly escalating, as IFIMES Institute was periodically writing. On one hand, North Korea has declared it will no longer pursue unification as long as Seoul sticks to a strategy centered around the "collapse of the DPRK's regime," "unification by absorption," and "unification under liberal democracy." On the other hand, South Korea announced plans to further strengthen the US-ROK extended deterrence system aimed at the North, calling for "peace through strength." Given the starkly different positions held by the two Koreas, prospects for the improvement of inter-Korean relations this year look bleak. In reality, the escalating hostility between the two nations will likely lead to a rapid deterioration of the security situation on the Peninsula, potentially jeopardizing regional peace and stability.

Unification Policies: Irreversible, Incompatible or Impossible? Although inter-Korean relations have not progressed in a positive direction over the past four years, North-South ties reached a new low point on December 31, 2023, when Pyongyang announced a change in the country's unification policy. According to North Korean media KCNA, Kim Jong-un called for a "decisive policy change" in how the North deals with the South. Kim announced the policy shift at the 9th Enlarged Plenary Meeting of the 8th Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), held from Dec. 26-30.
According to the North Korean leader, his country's policy for national reunification has not had its desired effect, instead "the north-south relations have repeated the vicious cycle of contact and suspension, dialogue and confrontation....