Policy analysts, pundits, and politicians have long predicted that the North Korean government will go the way of East German Communism. Just as the seemingly impregnable Honecker regime rapidly disintegrated along with the Berlin Wall in November 1989, the Kim dynasty in North Korea has been expected to collapse at any minute. This minute, of course, has lasted for more than two decades.

The latest trend is not simply to predict regime collapse but to prepare for it. As far back as 1999, the United States and South Korea drafted CONPLAN 5029 as a set of military contingency plans in the event of political chaos north of the 38th parallel, a conceptual plan that only became a completed operational plan in 2009. In 2008, the South Korean government altered its defense strategy to incorporate rapid response brigades, anchored by 2,000 advanced wheeled armored vehicles that could move quickly to secure cities and critical infrastructure in case of internal instability in the North.
 

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