Despite years of tensions, a majority of South Koreans have long clung to a cautiously optimistic vision for their peninsula's future. Even if North and South Korea weren't one day unified, the thinking went, the countries would at least be connected by joint business ventures and rail lines, with some there even traveling on weekends to resorts in the North's mountainsides.

But for many South Koreans, the recent weeks of fury from Pyongyang, and in particular the barricade of a joint industrial park near the border, has driven home a different conclusion: The South is better off keeping its distance from the North than cooperating with it or even trying to.

Some analysts say the tension of recent weeks, at a level not seen in two decades, has levied a clear and long-lasting toll on relations between the two Koreas, even if both sides manage to avoid armed conflict and ratchet down hostility.