I read a long time ago that German reunification was possible because the division was 2 generations long. They hypothesized that when you get to 3+ generations long it would be extremely difficult, which is where Korea is.

[–] otp@sh.itjust.works 14 points 10 months ago

Yeah. At the start, it was friends and family members.

Decades later, it was uncles and grandparents.

Nowadays, it's basically refugees who speak the same language, but a different accent...and are VERY culturally different.

Good luck convincing a developed nation to accept 26 million refugees overnight, who are likely undernourished and undereducated. In exchange, you get 120K KM of land which might be resource-wealthy, but then you also have to be mindful that there might be terrorists who oppose the government.

Reunification sounded great decades ago. It still sounds great on paper in a best case scenario (aka. fantasy land). Even if it's "the right thing to do", though, it's not going to be easy.