Both sides in the Korean War sought to unify the Korean peninsula under their own form of government, but neither achieved that goal. After the Armistice, North Korea rebuilt with Soviet and Chinese help and prospered economically and culturally, while South Korea languished under oppressive and corrupt dictatorships. In the 1970s, South Korea’s economy began to advance using loans from Japan and the United States, and in the 1980s its people reshaped their government into a democratic republic. Today, South Korea is one of the most developed and wealthiest nations in the world. North Korea, however, lost its largest trade partner and military provider with the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, and floods, drought, and famine devastated the country. Today, its totalitarian dictatorship keeps the North Korean people uninformed, underfed, and under constant surveillance. Reunification remains a hope for many, but whether it will ever happen, and whether it would come peacefully or through renewed bloodshed, remains uncertain.