Mick Hartley

Perhaps this is why the Russians are quite happy to take full responsibility for any threats to the security of the proposed gas pipeline to South Korea as it passes through the North: because they don't expect North Korea to last.

The Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO), Russia's foremost national policy think tank, takes the imminent collapse of the North Korean regime as a given in a special report published recently. IMEMO concludes that Korean reunification led by South Korea coincides with Russia's national interests….

IMEMO believes the…transfer of power from North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to his son Jong-un will trigger the collapse of the North. The leadership crisis will lead to a power struggle between "bureaucrats" with foreign business connections and "military and security officials" with no outside links, the report said. 

Then over the following decade, a provisional North Korean government would be established under the aegis of the international community so that the North comes under South Korean control, while the North's military will be disarmed and modernization get underway, the report forecast. IMEMO said the North Korean economy will gradually be absorbed into South Korea's in the process and that around 1 million North Korean supporters of the old regime will flee to either China or Russia. 

IMEMO said the emergence of a reunified Korea led by South Korea would have a "positive effect" on Russia's position in the Asia-Pacific region. And with the situation on the Korean Peninsula stabilizing, Russia would "strengthen its diplomatic power in the Far East" and gain a "reliable partner," it added….

A diplomatic source said, "It has been an established theory that Russia and other regional powers surrounding the Korean Peninsula favor the status quo rather than reunification, but here is a top Russian think tank publicly welcoming reunification led by South Korea."