Many South Koreans no longer see North Korea as a threat. Instead of a mortal enemy, North Korea has become transmogrified into a sympathetic brother in the South Korean imagination.
And that the North's nuclear program will bring prestige to a unified Korea:
In Seoul's long-term calculus, the North Korean bomb is the "Korean bomb," which will benefit Seoul after eventual reunification. Such a quixotic view is epitomized by South Korean popular culture.
I've come to the conclusion that our South Korean alliance is in peril in the long run. I'd thought it was based on cold calculations over differing American/Japanese goals and South Korean goals. That is, Japan and America worry about nukes since this is a new threat to us. South Korea doesn't worry about nukes since the ability to nuke Seoul is a destruction not too different from the destruction that an invasion could have inflicted the last fifty years. South Korea would rather risk Tokyo or Seattle (or Guam) than risk even a conventional invasion by the North Koreans in order to eliminate the North Korean nuclear arsenal. As disturbing as this divergence is, I figured we could probably reconcile our goals. At the worst, North Korean insanity would eventually provide a common--or at least overlapping--threat perception.
But it may be worse than mere tactics and vulnerabilities. I have little faith that the North and South can unite in a happy kumbaya celebration of Korean-ness. And if the South doesn't take the threat seriously, reunification may be on Pyongyang's terms after all. You need the will to fight and not just the weapons. Will the South fight their "brothers" in the North if the balloon goes up?
North Korea is already world-class nutty. The South Koreans might have gone completely bonkers as well. Our North Korean problem might well become a Korean problem, and I don't know what we can do about it.
That decade sucking thing? I mentioned that already, right?
