Conventional geopolitical thinking has long assumed that North Korea has pursued an unrelenting campaign of provocations, its illicit nuclear program, and even a nuclear weapons test with the objective of assuring the survival of its current regime. Toward that end, an exasperated Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently told CNN, “there is no intention to invade or attack them. So they have that guarantee… I don’t know what more they want.” It is that “more” that North Korea wants that is really driving North Korea’s actions. North Korea wants the U.S. to withdraw its forces from South Korea, end its military obligations to the South, and ultimately, Korean reunification on its terms.North Korea has long sought to reunify and place the Korean Peninsula under its totalitarian rule. On June 25, 1950 it launched an invasion of South Korea only to have its forces rolled back by massive U.S. intervention. Ultimately, following Chinese, and to a lesser extent, Soviet intervention in the conflict, the boundary between the two Koreas was set at the 38th Parallel.Since then, North Korea has persisted in its call for reunification. Under Kim Jong-il, that call for reunification has grown more urgent. North Korea sees Korean reunification…