Will North Korea Use Nuclear Weapons for Forceful Reunification?

ROK Drop favorite Andrei Lankov thinks that North Korea is building their nuclear weapons program to forcefully reunite the peninsula and the Hankyoreh disagrees with this assessment:

In a recent interview with the Chosun Ilbo newspaper, Kookmin University professor Andrei Lankov said that North Korea has “had great success with focusing all its national capabilities on developing nuclear weapons and missiles.” He went on to say that North Korea’s plans for a forced reunification under communism are “not a dream, but a reality.”

As a basis for that prediction, he explained, “If the US were to fight to protect Seoul, the US president would have to consider the possibilities of Los Angeles, San Francisco, or New York suffering multiple North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) strikes that cause countless casualties.” (……)

Also, how would the US react to North Korea threatening to strike its major cities with ICBMs to force it to stay out of the situation? Would it bow to those threats in order to avoid suffering its own losses?We don’t need to think too hard to find the answers. The South Korea-US alliance would respond to the North’s threat of nuclear strikes by showing their ability and willingness to retaliate forcefully. If the North actually did use tactical nuclear weapons, it would respond with massive retaliation.

Hankyoreh

You can read much more at the link, but I actually agree some what with both viewpoints. As things stand now North Korea will not use its nuclear weapons to forcibly reunite the peninsula because of the massive retaliation they would face and US missile defenses that mitigates their ICBM threats.

However this may not be the case in the future. The Kim regime has clearly been working to undermine the US-ROK alliance, most notably by pushing for the Korean War peace treaty during the prior Moon administration. If the US agreed to a peace treaty then that draws into question the existence of the US-ROK alliance. Any effort to forcibly reunite the peninsula requires the Kim regime to break up the US-ROK alliance.

They also need a credible threat to the US homeland. Right now their ICBMs cannot penetrate US missile defense defending the American continent. However, the Kim regime continues to test their ICBMs likely focusing on developing countermeasures to penetrate US missile defenses.

I there are no US troops in South Korea and North Korea has a credible nuclear threat to US cities would the US respond to threats made to the ROK? I think the answer to that question really depends on relations between the ROK and US at the time. I think it is more likely though the Kim regime will use their nuclear weapons to create a crisis to extort the ROK with.