North & South Korea conflict

[Anomalocaris]

News reports about North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un are saying that he's no longer seeking reunification & I'm thinking that this may be good news for the US presence in South Korea, because if South Korea also takes the same position of no longer also seeking reunification, the two sides can declare their conflict resolved, sign peace treaties with each other, and we (the US) can pack up and leave.

Unification on north Korea’s terms has been farther out of its reach than the moon for North Korea since the end of the Vietnam war.    Every instance of tension raising North Korea has undertaken since then, whether under the pretext of unification or some other,  has been for a different real objective.     So I don’t see this announcement as having any significance as a signal for any real course change.

The U.S. is not there because there is a danger than North Korea could actually take out South Korea.    The U.S. force is there to ensure the U.S. has a presence in that part of the world, influence in internal South Korean politics and most importantly the close U.S. Japanese alliance does not drive south Korea towards China in regional geostrategic outlook.    If the U.S. is not there in each country, the possibility of armed stand off between South Korea and Japan, or even open conflict, over territorial dispute between the two countries is not insignificant, and if that were to happen South Korea would jump straight into China’s arms for support and China would readily exploit the opportunity to take Japan down a notch or two by coordinating with South Korea and grab some islands that are the core of China’s own territorial dispute with Japan.

China would love to grab these islands, just north of Taiwan, because holding them would outflank Taiwan’s defenses, and block any support for Taiwan from the direction of Japan in the case of armed conflict over Taiwan.