It's going to be a colossal fuckfest, and will depend on four factors:

1 - Who is in charge in the US, and how they react
2 - Who is in charge in China, and how they react
3 - Who is in charge in South Korea, and how they react
4 - How bad the violence in North Korea gets - ie: how many factions are doing what to each other. That there will be violence can pretty much be considered a given.

Oh, and 5 - what weapons do the least stable factions have access to. The nukes are bad; the massive artillery batteries trained on Seoul are almost as bad.

At the end of the day, it's going to suck to be in Korea. Things will - eventually - dramatically improve for the North Koreans, but the South Koreans are going to be making massive sacrifices to make that happen. At first the rest of the world will pitch in, until we get bored and take our toys home.

If NK goes CD, China will nab most of the SCs and use that momentum to take SK as well. Japan might try to jump in on the SK pickings, but will most likely not hold on to anything he gets.

there are SCs in North Korea? I beg to differ ;)

No SCs, but it's strategically very important if you want to have a chance at taking Vladivostok.

ODaly +1

Do we think SK will merge with the north? I know there was a large wealth gap in East/West Germany at unification, but part of me thinks the Korean divide is just too great.

From what I know, those were two very different situations. People on both sides of Germany really wanted the wall to come down. I could be wrong, but I think the S.Koreans just want to be left alone and N.Koreans have been in the dark for so long that they don't really know what the South is like. The information black out in NK is much more severe than Germany was.

the n. koreans know what is going on in s. korea and know what the south is like. the north and south do want reunification, at least the population, the N.korean leaders (leader) not so much, though now with the crown switching heads there might be hope. there will be reunification sometime, whether by actual war or by peace, though it could take another 50 years, who knows.

this is mainly my opinion, though i've taken a couple different classes on the issue, and what i previously stated is what seems to be the general consensus.

I'll defer to your judgement.

A three way; Russia, China, and an US/Japan. But All three will more likely work together to keep the chaos, to a minimum. An all out war involving 3 large nuclear powers would get dicey, and it would be to the advantage for all three to have a stable Korea. The country could easly drift towards neutrality after unifcation by playing the three powers blocks off each other. Likely China would sigh with relief if the Korea issue was resolved quietly. Even China probably found N Korea's erratic behavior trying at times.

I would like remind, that the fall of the Berlin Wall was totally unexpected.

I wonder if hasselhoff will go dance and sing at the 38' line :)