Quotes of the Day:
“Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him.”
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
"We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are”
- Anonymous
“We live in different realities but when you deny what this person is going through, you are denying their reality. We are as different as we are on the inside as on the outside, and we have the right to be so.
People, don’t deny differences… accept them, recognize them and cherish them”
- Jane Elliot
1. UN discussing easing sanctions on North: Interfax
2. U.S. reconnaissance drone spotted over Korean Peninsula
3. NK’s vaccine refusal may be due to side effects, efficacy concerns
4. Why North Korea Turned Inward After the Trump Era
5. Korea's female population forecast to surpass that of males in 9 years
6. President Moon unlikely to veto 'fake news' bill
7. Korea Was the United States' First Forever War
8. Opportunities and Pitfalls of an End of War Declaration for Korea
1. UN discussing easing sanctions on North: Interfax
Russia is trying to control the narrative and Russia, China, and possibly even South Korea (though not a current member of the UNSC) want to say that the suffering in north Korea is caused by the sanctions. That is wrong. The suffering is caused by Kim Jong-un's decision making and his choice to prioritize nuclear weapons and missile programs and military modernization over the welfare of the Korean people. I am sure the Russians expect that the US will veto any measure calling for lifting sanctions which Russia (and China) will exploit to create the tired old narrative that it is the US who is deliberately causing the suffering of the Korean people in the north. We must get ahead of this (perhaps France or UK can be convinced to step up and veto a measure and the US will abstain, both have said they would veto sanctions relief in the past I believe). We must understand how Russia (and China) will exploit this as part of great power competition. And of course this issue can also drive a wedge in the ROK US alliance which is likely an objective of Russia and China and surely north Korea.
PERMANENT AND NON-PERMANENT MEMBERS
The Council is composed of 15 Members:
Sunday
September 5, 2021
UN discussing easing sanctions on North: Interfax
A health official conducts anti-epidemic work at the entrance of Pyongsong city in South Pyongan Province, North Korea on Wednesday. [AP/YONHAP]
The United Nations Security Council is discussing easing international sanctions on North Korea in consideration of the economic difficulties caused by Covid-19, according to Russian media reports.
Russia's Interfax news agency on Saturday quoted sources saying, “There is a mood within the Security Council that it can take symbolic measures [related to easing sanctions against North Korea],” and that “there will be no change even if sanctions are lifted because North Korea is closed due to Covid-19.”
North Korea has faced serious economic pressure throughout the past year, including from ongoing international sanctions against its development of nuclear weapons and missiles, the Covid-19 pandemic that forced it to close its borders, and a series of floods and other natural disasters.
Economic hardship in the North, which is rarely acknowledged by state media, has received frequent mention in the past year, with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un speaking of the “Arduous March” for the first time on record in April.
The term refers to a period of mass starvation brought on by a general economic crisis from 1994 to 1998 in North Korea following the collapse of aid from former Eastern Bloc countries as the Cold War ended.
North Korean media has also openly highlighted the seriousness of food shortages almost daily, raising speculation from outside observers that the country is attempting to garner international sympathy and aid.
Regarding the idea of lifting sanctions on North Korea, Interfax added, “The proposal to ease sanctions on North Korea is still on the negotiating table of the Security Council, but the United States put the brakes on immediately.”
While the North often blames the United States for its food and energy shortages, Voice of America (VOA) on Thursday quoted an unnamed U.S. State Department Official as saying, “The [North] has created significant barriers to the delivery of assistance by closing its borders and rejecting offers of international aid, while also limiting the personnel responsible for implementing and monitoring existing humanitarian projects” — putting the blame for the country’s humanitarian crisis squarely on its government.
He added, “We remain concerned about the human rights situation in North Korea. The [North] continues to exploit its own citizens and divert resources from the country’s people to build up its unlawful nuclear and ballistic weapons programs.”
The interview follows the official position of the United States, which maintains that sanctions must be kept in place if there is no substantial change in the North Korean nuclear issue.
Regarding the Interfax report, Shin Beom-chul, head of the Foreign Affairs and Security Center at the Research Institute for Economy and Society, said, “China and Russia’s stance on sanctions against North Korea has been highlighted through the Russian media report on discussions at the Security Council.”
The two countries have repeatedly voiced their preference for dialogue over sanctions where the North's nuclear weapons and missile development is concerned.
BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]
2. U.S. reconnaissance drone spotted over Korean Peninsula
Prudent and routine action. We need to conduct ISR operations to observe for indicators. Sometimes the press makes a big deal out of nothing (or a routine action).
While we are all focused on the likely parade preparations (which is likely what the regime wants us to focus on), we have to be alert for other activities that the regime is trying to hide or distract us from seeing. What is it that Kim does not want us to see? This is why comprehensive and sustained ISR operations are important.
U.S. reconnaissance drone spotted over Korean Peninsula
This photo provided by the North Korean government on Jan. 14 shows missiles during a military parade marking the ruling party congress, at Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, North Korea. AP-Yonhap
A U.S. reconnaissance aircraft was spotted Sunday over the Korean Peninsula, a flight tracker said, amid speculation that North Korea might be preparing for a military parade to mark major national anniversaries.
The Global Hawk plane was seen flying in the skies along the border with North Korea, such as the greater Seoul area and the country's northeastern Gangwon Province, according to Flightradar24 and other sources.
The Global Hawk is a high-tech unmanned drone that can perform tasks to a range of up to 3,000 km and distinguish objects on the ground as small as 30 centimeters in diameter.
Its detection came after a large number of troops were reportedly seen gathering in Pyongyang, a sign that North Korea might be preparing for a military parade ahead of its state and ruling party founding anniversaries on Thursday and Oct. 10, respectively.
The possibility of a military parade in North Korea draws attention as North Korea recently warned of a "serious security crisis" in protest over the combined military exercise staged last month by South Korea and the United States.
North Korea usually uses such national anniversaries to hold military parades and showcase its state-of-the-art weaponry.
Last October, North held a massive military parade to mark the 75th party founding anniversary and unveiled a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) and several other advanced military assets.
The North's latest military parade was held in January right after its rare party congress. During the event, leader Kim Jong-un pledged to bolster the country's nuclear arsenal. (Yonhap)
3. NK’s vaccine refusal may be due to side effects, efficacy concerns
Given the state of health of the average Korean in the north it is probably correct to be cautious about side effects. Perhaps some of the side effects we experience in the developed countries might have greater and potentially debilitating outcomes in the north.
But the regime should still be pursuing vaccinations and turning down any assistance is likely doing more harm that good in the long run.
NK’s vaccine refusal may be due to side effects, efficacy concerns
Published : Sept 5, 2021 - 14:32 Updated : Sept 5, 2021 - 17:15
COVID-19 vaccine (123rf)
North Korea has turned down some million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, which may be largely out of concerns about side-effects as well as mistrust over the vaccine efficacy, pundits have said.
The reclusive regime recently rejected about 3 million doses of China’s Sinovac Biotech vaccine, and asked for them to be sent to other severely affected countries instead, according to the UNICEF, which is in charge of distributing doses on behalf of the COVAX facility -- a multinational program that provides vaccines to lower-income countries.
North Korea was also supposed to receive 2 million doses of AstraZeneca shots via the COVAX scheme, but the regime rejected them in July apparently over side effect concerns, according to the Institute for National Security Strategy, a think tank run by South Korea’s spy agency.
Nagi Shafik, the former project manager for the World Health Organization office in Pyongyang, echoed a similar view that the regime’s hesitance to accept vaccines may be due to reports of rare complications and efficacy concerns, according to the South China Morning Post.
“It may sound strange, but when trying to understand, I think perhaps they are concerned about the possible side effects of the AstraZeneca vaccine,” Shakif told the SCMP. “As for the Sinovac, perhaps they think, like many other countries in the world, it is not efficient enough.”
The INSS also said that North appears reluctant on Chinese vaccines as it views the shots to be not as effective and safe, while it is more optimistic about Russia’s vaccine, Sputnik V.
The North, however, has been waging a tougher anti-epidemic steps more recently, with Kim warning of “prolonged” coronavirus measures, indicating the country is not ready to lift its strict lockdown anytime soon.
“Tightening epidemic prevention is the task of paramount importance which must not be loosened even a moment under the present situation,“ North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said during a politburo meeting Thursday, according to the Korea Central News Agency.
While Kim stressed the need to accept advanced anti-epidemic technology, he called for the need to fight the pandemic in “our style.”
Pyongyang continues to claim it has had zero coronavirus infections, but observers say an outbreak there cannot be ruled out, given its exchanges and trade with neighboring China. But since the onset of the pandemic, the North has imposed the strictest quarantine measures of any nation, shutting down its borders and suspending international trade to prevent the spread of the virus.
Thae Yong-ho, a former North Korean diplomat-turned-defector and now an opposition lawmaker, said Saturday the North doesn’t find it “appealing” on obtaining vaccines from foreign countries.
“North Korea is a country ruled by the supreme leader, which means the supreme leader has to be at the center of saving North Koreans from crisis,” Thae said in a public statement. “If the country overcame a crisis with the support from the outside, the authority of the supreme leader could crumble.”
He added that the North’s currently touting to be coronavirus-free could serve as a good opportunity to solidify authority of Kim inside the country.
“COVID-19 is a crisis to the North, but at the same time serves as a good opportunity to strengthen its internal control system,” he said, noting the border lockdown has blocked information flow and transfer of goods from outside.
4. Why North Korea Turned Inward After the Trump Era
Kim's game is not a new one. While he tried tactical changes there was never any intent on reform. It is not a "political game" but a political warfare strategy. I wish Mr. Bandow, and other pundits, policy makers, and strategists (though many if not most policy makers and strategists do get it) would recognize, understand, and accept the nature, objectives and strategy. ONce we understand or know the adversary (just as Sun Tzu said (as well as knowing ourselves, our allies, and the other powers vying for influence in North East Asia) we develop effective policy and good strategy that is based on our own execution of a superior political warfare campaign.
Mr. Bandow's conclusion is getting close to recognizing the true nature, objectives, and strategy of the regime but I fear he labors under the misguided belief that the US can change the regime's nature through concessions and appeasement.
Excerpts:
However, Washington must consider the possibility that Kim Jong-un’s reticence with engagement is not a political game but a new national strategy. His government has apparently restarted its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, capable of producing plutonium which would back Kim jong-un’s stated plans to add submarine-launched, tactical, and super-size nuclear weapons to his arsenal. “The enemies are now trembling with terror at this powerful current and spirit,” Kim Jong-un declared.
If Kim Jong-un is prepared to make his country’s impoverishment permanent while expanding his military capabilities, then the United States and Allied states will have to rethink their policy options, of which none are good. Imagine North Korea as China once was, a radicalized, isolated pariah state with a significant nuclear capability. That is a future that no one wants to contemplate.
Why North Korea Turned Inward After the Trump Era
Kim Jong-un has launched a campaign against access to the outside world.
Kim Jong-un continues to abandon what once appeared to be a hallmark of his tenure: a commitment to economic growth and support for economic reform. Indeed, Kim seems to be racing back into North Korea’s collectivist past.
“North Korean teenagers and twenty-somethings are following the government’s call to leave home for coal mines and construction sites, and the country’s leader Kim Jong Un reportedly thanked them for their sacrifices in a new letter released in state media on Sunday,” reported Colin Zwirko of NKNews. This sounds like the Chinese “rusticated youth”—around 17 million over a dozen years—heading off to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution when ideological fervor displaced economic development and rational thinking.
Both founder Kim Il-sung and successor Kim Jong-il appeared to treat economic growth as a threat to their rule. Even mass starvation did not cause the latter to change course. Rather, his government’s inability to feed its people effectively forced North Koreans to exercise private initiative to survive, and he subsequently allowed the resulting markets to survive.
The Chinese later tried whisking Kim Jong-il around Shanghai, suggesting that he take a similar reform course and profit from the results. Unfortunately, Beijing’s hope for significant change was, as always, dashed. Kim Jong-il grew to fear the new monied class and in 2009 initiated a currency “reform” that destroyed much of the private wealth that had been created. “This move is part of Pyongyang’s broader effort to curtail the rise of market activities and the development of pathways to wealth—and potentially power—beyond state control,” Marcus Noland of the Peterson Institute for International Economics explained.
However, this appeared to be one area where Kim Jong-un was prepared to break with his predecessors. Although his policy initiatives fell far short of what is necessary to transform the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, they were real, affecting both agriculture and industry.
Kim Jong-un had to agree to the changes, but his commitment even at the time might have been superficial. “My explanation is that the true authors of the reforms are individuals—or maybe even one person—in the North Korean elite, but not Kim himself,” Fyodor Tertitskiy observed. They prepared the plans, which were then signed by Kim Jong-un: this would logically explain virtually all the “oddities” reflected in the economic plans.
Nevertheless, by Donald Trump’s presidency, Kim Jong-un was promising the North Korean people that economic growth was his top priority. Perhaps this sparked the president’s emphasis on the potential economic reward for denuclearization. Indeed, the administration even prepared a curious video purporting to show the kind of economic development that North Korea could expect if Kim Jong-un yielded his nuclear arsenal. Moreover, economic growth was Kim Jong-un’s objective in his push at Hanoi for major sanctions relief.
However, that world has disappeared. Kim Jong-un’s government turned inward after Trump’s rebuff. The former has since sealed his nation’s borders because of the coronavirus, retreated on previous economic reforms, reemphasized military and nuclear development, and warned his people of another “arduous march,” which is the euphemism for the deadly famine of the 1990s. Indeed, Tertitskiy appeared prescient four years ago. “If my hypothesis is true, that means that prospects for the North Korean economy are not bright,” Tertitskiy wrote. “These reform instigators are not in total control of the country, and their efforts are constantly being sabotaged by whoever is in charge of foreign policy.”
Coincidentally or not, Kim Jong-un also has launched a serious campaign against access to the outside, meaning mostly South Korean, culture, and for ideological rejuvenation. Now the DPRK is sending its youth off on an ideological campaign to achieve economic ends, a traditional communist tactic. “Thousands of these youth ‘volunteers’ who gathered in Pyongyang on Saturday to celebrate Youth Day, a holiday that Kim has said is meant to demonstrate the organizing ability of young Koreans and inspire the nation to work with youthful vigor,” Zwirko wrote.
What is notable is how Kim Jong-un addressed both concerns, insisting that “vicious sanctions and pressure and tenacious ideological and cultural infiltration has vanished like bubbles in the face of this strong current” of youthful activism. Kim Jong-un compared other nations unfavorably. “Young people around the world are flowing into their capital and other cities in pursuance of their avarice and personal pleasure,” he said. “Only the Korean young people who have grown up under the embrace of the socialist motherland unhesitatingly volunteer to exchange their cards of capital citizenship with notes of dispatch to coal mines, cooperative farms, grand construction sites and islands far from cities.”
If he holds to this policy, then the outcome will undermine economic progress in the short-term and ideological fervor in the long term. Sending China’s young to labor in tasks about which they knew nothing while sacrificing their education did not transform the nation for the better. On the contrary, the costs were great. Over time many if not most of those conscripted also grew disillusioned with the regime and its self-serving fantasies.
Why Kim Jong-un has so dramatically shifted course is unknown. He may have decided that sanctions relief is impossible without giving up nuclear weapons. Or he may have decided that his father and grandfather were right, that economic contact with the South and rest of the West threatens the regime and his dynasty. The best-case scenario is that his new posture is a holding pattern, preparing for prolonged autarky and, if necessary, increase his leverage for later talks.
However, Washington must consider the possibility that Kim Jong-un’s reticence with engagement is not a political game but a new national strategy. His government has apparently restarted its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, capable of producing plutonium which would back Kim jong-un’s stated plans to add submarine-launched, tactical, and super-size nuclear weapons to his arsenal. “The enemies are now trembling with terror at this powerful current and spirit,” Kim Jong-un declared.
If Kim Jong-un is prepared to make his country’s impoverishment permanent while expanding his military capabilities, then the United States and Allied states will have to rethink their policy options, of which none are good. Imagine North Korea as China once was, a radicalized, isolated pariah state with a significant nuclear capability. That is a future that no one wants to contemplate.
Image: Reuters
5. Korea's female population forecast to surpass that of males in 9 years
Some fascinating data. For the demographers, what are the implications of this?
Korea's female population forecast to surpass that of males in 9 years
gettyimagesbankSouth Korea's female population is forecast to surpass that of males in nine years, a government report showed Sunday.
The total number of women reached 25.86 million last year, accounting for 49.9 percent of the country's entire population of 51.82 million, according to the report compiled by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family.
The ratio of males to females in the South Korean population fell to 100.4 in 2021 from 101.4 tallied in 2000.
The ministry said the sex ratio will likely hit 99.8 in 2030, with the female population forecast to outnumber that of males for the first time.
By age, women in their 50s totaled 4.25 million, taking up 16.5 percent of the total female population, closely followed by 4 million fortysomethings and 3.3 million thirtysomethings.
More than 1.3 million women, or 5.1 percent, were aged more than 80 years old.
The government report said the average woman married for the first time at 30.8 in 2020, while her husband was 33.2 years old.
The age of a woman's first marriage has been on a steady increase for the past decade, rising from 26.5 years in 2000.
The report also showed that South Korean women's health life expectancy, referring to the expected number of remaining years of life spent in good health from a particular age, posted 74.7 years in 2019, up five years from nine years ago.
It is 3.4 years longer than men's health life expectancy, which was 71.3 years in 2019. (Yonhap)
6. President Moon unlikely to veto 'fake news' bill
That would be a mistake. But perhaps it will not make it through the National Assembly since it seems to have some opposition in the ruling party. For the good of the ROK and ROK democracy this bill needs to be rejected.
President Moon unlikely to veto 'fake news' bill
President Moon Jae-in speaks during a luncheon with National Assembly leaders at Cheong Wa Dae, Friday. YonhapBy Nam Hyun-woo
The conservative main opposition People Power Party (PPP) is increasingly urging President Moon Jae-in to veto a controversial media law revision, widely referred to as the "fake news" bill. But it appears unlikely that Moon will use his right, in a bid to prevent his moves from affecting the liberal ruling Democratic Party of Korea's (DPK) popularity in the upcoming presidential election.
According to the National Assembly, the DPK will table the proposed revision at a plenary session on Sept. 27. The revision was initially set to be put to vote at an Aug. 30 plenary session, but the plan was postponed amid strong protest from opposition parties, media organizations and civic groups.
If the DPK and the PPP fail to reach an agreement, the revision, which sets out punitive damages for news outlets or reporters that produce incorrect or fabricated reports, will likely go to a vote at the upcoming session and be legislated, because the DPK holds more than half of the 300-seat Assembly.
Due to this, the PPP has been calling for President Moon to exercise his veto right, with which a president can send an Assembly-passed bill back for review. PPP floor leader Kim Gi-hyeon said on Aug. 30, "If the President does not exercise a veto, we will prepare every possible process to determine his responsibility for such a decision."
However, Moon and Cheong Wa Dae have been taking an equivocal stance. According to PPP lawmakers who attended a meeting between Moon and National Assembly leaders on Friday, the President said "fake news is a threat to democracy, and it is also democracy that prevents society from controlling fake news," adding it is "such an irony."
Moon also said on Aug. 31 after the Assembly postponed the voting, "Laws and rules related to the fake news bill should be considered thoroughly to prevent possible abuses, but it is also important to prevent malicious fabricated reports and protect those who suffer from such reports."
Along with Moon's ambiguous remarks, other Cheong Wa Dae officials are taking a neutral stance on the fake news bill as well as other key pending political issues before the presidential election in March next year.
People Power Party floor leader Rep. Kim Gi-hyeon speaks during a rally against a media law revision outlining punitive damages to be paid by news outlets that produce "fake news" in front of the National Assembly on Yeouido, Aug. 30.
Yonhap
Regarding the parole decision last month on Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, it took four days for Cheong Wa Dae to release a comment about the issue. During the four days following the justice ministry's parole decision to release Lee from jail, criticism from the liberal bloc mounted over Moon's silence on the issue. Lee was jailed after he was found guilty on charges of bribery and embezzlement involving impeached and jailed former President Park Geun-hye.
"With the presidential election taking place in less than six months, the President seems to be trying to avoid anything that can be seen as influencing the election," an official of the ruling bloc said on condition of anonymity.
"Also, if Moon vetoes the media bill revision, it can be interpreted as a sign that the presidential office and the ruling party are in conflict, which may weaken Moon's grip on state affairs in the late stage of his tenure," the official said. "If the President were seriously against the bill, Cheong Wa Dae would have already coordinated with the DPK before the issue reached this stage."
Moon has no history of exercising his veto right on bills passed at the National Assembly. Last year, he was urged to veto a bill that technically prohibits operation of the Tada ride-hailing service, but did not do so. In comparison, former President Park and her predecessor Lee Myung-bak exercised their veto rights twice and once during their presidencies, respectively.
7. Korea Was the United States' First Forever War
A painful read but. it must be read. There is still a lot to learn. Yes we truly made tragic mistakes. There is no excuse for or defense of the events. But South Korea has survived and thrived because of Korean culture and the resilience of the Korean people (which is the common trait among Koreans in the north and South).
But I do not accept the thesis that our past mistakes are the cause for the inability to achieve denuclearization in the north. The problem is the Kim family regime. Yes, we contributed to atrocities in the war but the regime's atrocities have been far worse for the past 7 decades. But the regime has deliberately chosen to prioritize nuclear weapons, missile and military modernization over the welfare of the Korean people and the regime is dependent on creating the ongoing threat from the South and the US in order to justify the sacrifices of the Korean people. The real reason for the inability to denuclearize is because Kim chooses not to. Blaming our tragic history in Korea is weak excuse and allows Kim to continue to get away with murder (literaly).
And the idea that an end of war declaration will lead to negotiations and denuclearization is also a fallacy. In the end Kim will only participate in an end of war declaration if it includes the end of the alliance and the removal of US troops from the Korean peninsula as that is what Kim needs to support his political warfare and long term strategy. He will not accept an end of war declaration as a security guarantee unless it includes an end to the alliance and removal of troops and an end to extended deterrence and the nuclear umbrella. Paradoxically, an end of war declaration will not provide a security guarantee to the ROK either because the nKPA remains pasurteed for offensive operations and to bring a great deal of death and destruction to Seoul. Negotiation of an end of war declaration must include the north shifting to a defense posture 20-40 KM north of the DMZ and removal of artillery, rocket, and missile systems from the Kaesong Heights.
Excerpts:
This distortion is the reason why North Korea’s denuclearization has been such a fruitless task for decades. The United States can spend many hours discussing the specific points where negotiations fell through. But ultimately, negotiation with North Korea always fails because all relevant parties—North Korea, South Korea and the United States—are inured to the original forever war.
In the United States, for example, many experts (including myself) have advocated for an end-of-war declaration with North Korea. It would be a small step toward trust-building with North Korea, as the declaration would only recognize, as a practical matter, the reality that the Korean War has been over for decades. Yet many in Washington have opposed this simple measure, supposedly out of concern that the declaration might weaken the U.S.-South Korea alliance—oblivious, apparently, that two countries may form an alliance in the state of peace. Unless the United States abandons the mindset that kept it in a losing war for the past 20 years, it will not see progress in ending its longest war.
Korea Was the United States' First Forever War
Incompetent U.S. forces did more harm than help for South Korea’s path to democracy.
By S. Nathan Park, a Washington-based attorney and nonresident fellow of the Sejong Institute.
In one corner of the Peace Park in Jeju, a large tropical island off the southern coast of South Korea, there is a statue of a barefoot young woman with a baby falling in a field of snow. The park commemorates the April 3 incident, also known as the Jeju Massacre, in which the South Korean military, under U.S. military oversight, slaughtered as many as 30,000 civilians from April 1948 to August 1949.
Following unrest that culminated in 350 communist militiamen attacking a police station on April 3, 1948, then-South Korean President Syngman Rhee declared martial law on the island and began indiscriminately destroying villages on its mountain ridges, where the insurgents were supposedly hiding. According to a 2003 fact-finding report by the South Korean government, Rhee’s military and police destroyed nearly 60 percent of Jeju’s 400 villages and killed 10 percent of the entire island’s population. The statue is based on Byeon Byeong-saeng, who was 25 years old in January 1949. She was running with her 2-year-old infant in the snow-covered mountain ridge of Jeju when she was shot dead.
As the United States debates its withdrawal from Afghanistan, South Korea is a popular example among those who wished to stay. Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pointed to “a stable equilibrium on the Korean Peninsula [and] a valuable South Korean ally.” Robert Kagan, Washington Post columnist and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, noted Americans “have kept troops in Korea for 70 years … The fact is, Americans will keep troops in distant theaters for decades, so long as casualties are minimal.” Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, tweeted an “open-ended presence” in Afghanistan could have been an option, as it was the case for U.S. forces in South Korea. Conservative pundit Ben Shapiro posted: “If we abandoned every country for which we had sacrificed blood and treasure due to corruption concerns, authoritarianism, and inability of the domestic military to repel foreign invasion, South Korea would not exist.”
In one corner of the Peace Park in Jeju, a large tropical island off the southern coast of South Korea, there is a statue of a barefoot young woman with a baby falling in a field of snow. The park commemorates the April 3 incident, also known as the Jeju Massacre, in which the South Korean military, under U.S. military oversight, slaughtered as many as 30,000 civilians from April 1948 to August 1949.
Following unrest that culminated in 350 communist militiamen attacking a police station on April 3, 1948, then-South Korean President Syngman Rhee declared martial law on the island and began indiscriminately destroying villages on its mountain ridges, where the insurgents were supposedly hiding. According to a 2003 fact-finding report by the South Korean government, Rhee’s military and police destroyed nearly 60 percent of Jeju’s 400 villages and killed 10 percent of the entire island’s population. The statue is based on Byeon Byeong-saeng, who was 25 years old in January 1949. She was running with her 2-year-old infant in the snow-covered mountain ridge of Jeju when she was shot dead.
As the United States debates its withdrawal from Afghanistan, South Korea is a popular example among those who wished to stay. Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pointed to “a stable equilibrium on the Korean Peninsula [and] a valuable South Korean ally.” Robert Kagan, Washington Post columnist and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, noted Americans “have kept troops in Korea for 70 years … The fact is, Americans will keep troops in distant theaters for decades, so long as casualties are minimal.” Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, tweeted an “open-ended presence” in Afghanistan could have been an option, as it was the case for U.S. forces in South Korea. Conservative pundit Ben Shapiro posted: “If we abandoned every country for which we had sacrificed blood and treasure due to corruption concerns, authoritarianism, and inability of the domestic military to repel foreign invasion, South Korea would not exist.”
Today’s South Korea is an amazing country—but that’s little comfort to the 25-year-old woman who died barefoot in the snow with her baby and the over a million Koreans in the North and South whose lives were sacrificed on the way, let alone the people of North Korea who still live under dictatorship. These comments reveal the mindset that enabled the “forever war”: a callous dismissal of an unconscionable human cost in favor of a simplistic and self-serving historical narrative, which hubristically declares the coming arrival of a teleological future. This is precisely the mindset that caused the United States to lose the War in Afghanistan and made the North Korean nuclear crisis impossible to resolve.
For all the talk of the forever war in the Middle East, the longest U.S. war is not Afghanistan but the Korean War, which is under an indefinite cease-fire 71 years after the war began in 1950.
Yet, to be sure the trajectory of South Korea in those 71 years is nothing short of miraculous, Daniel Tudor, former Seoul correspondent for the Economist, titled one of his books Korea: the Impossible Country. Since the U.S. military entered the Korean Peninsula in 1945 at the end of World War II, the impoverished former Japanese colony endured an apocalyptic civil war and decades of authoritarian rule to become a prosperous liberal democracy, a major presence in international affairs, and a staunch U.S. ally—all while avoiding another all-out war against North Korea. Indeed, the Korean War may be the Platonic ideal of a forever war and U.S.-led state-building, which explains South Korea’s popularity as the counterpoint for the Afghan withdrawal.
But on a closer examination of South Korea’s modern history, there are fewer reasons for Americans to pat themselves on the back. Most importantly, the United States did not even win the war. To this day, half of the Korean Peninsula remains under North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s totalitarian rule. If U.S. President Joe Biden had proposed to cede half of Afghanistan to a Taliban armed with 40 to 50 nuclear warheads, the proponents of the forever war would hardly consider it a victory. By pointing to South Korea, they are all but admitting that half-success is the only kind of success possible.
The United States could not do any better than half-success because U.S. management of South Korea and the Korean War was pockmarked with incompetence. Americans knew nothing about the country they divided and occupied. The two young colonels who determined the initial dividing line between North and South Korea—Dean Rusk and Charles Bonesteel—simply grabbed a National Geographic map and drew a line across the 38th parallel, which, as Rusk (later U.S. secretary of state under then-U.S. President John F. Kennedy) recalled, “made no sense economically or geographically.”
After advancing close to the border between North Korea and China in the early stages of the Korean War, the United States had to make an embarrassing retreat and suffer massive losses because of a catastrophic intelligence failure that ignored the possibility that China might intervene on behalf of North Korea. To this day, the term “advisory officer” (gomun-gwan) is South Korean military slang for an incompetent soldier, referring to the U.S. advisory officers who were considered utterly useless by the South Korean soldiers they supposedly commanded.
South Korea’s journey to democracy is worth celebrating, but in that journey, the United States was as much a hindrance as it was a help. To be sure, there were key moments in which U.S. support was invaluable, such as when U.S. ambassador Philip Habib interceded to prevent then-South Korean President Park Chung-hee from assassinating democracy activist (and later president) Kim Dae-jung in 1973.
Yet for nearly 40 years, the United States propped up murdering dictator after murdering dictator in South Korea—Rhee, Park, and Chun Doo-hwan—because the exigencies of the Cold War supposedly demanded such support. Just months after Chun usurped power and murdered hundreds of people in the 1980 Gwangju Uprising, then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan invited Chun to the White House, giving the military dictator the validation he was desperately seeking. The Chun dictatorship would have endured past 1987 if it were not for massive protests during the June Struggle movement, led in large part by left-leaning activists who were considered anti-American.
Above all, U.S. commentators’ self-congratulations over Korea elide just how many people died horribly and needlessly, either because of or at the behest of the United States. Those who advocated for the United States to stay in Afghanistan direly warned of the Taliban’s coming massacre. But in South Korea under U.S. supervision, the massacres happened nonetheless. Princeton University-educated, U.S.-installed dictator Rhee had killed tens of thousands of South Koreans before North Korea ever crossed the 38th parallel in 1950, purportedly to root out communists and their sympathizers.
In 1948, the United States had the formal authority to command the South Korean military, but the United States all but signed off on the Jeju Massacre, with Col. Rothwell Brown in Jeju touting his efficient coordination of South Korean military and the police who were wiping out the mountain villages. In response to the Jeju Massacre, South Korea’s 14th Regiment, stationed in the cities of Yeosu and Suncheon, South Korea, revolted as they refused to be sent to Jeju to kill civilians. While quelling the revolt, Rhee killed another 10,000 civilians in the area, with Capt. James H. Hausman (who came to be known as the “father of the South Korean army”) overseeing the supply of aircrafts, armored cars, and weapons for the operation.
The chaos of the Korean War, which killed 10 percent of the Korean population, ratcheted up the wholesale massacre of civilians. The United States dropped more bombs in North Korea than it did in World War II’s Pacific theater, without bothering to distinguish between military and civilian targets. Gen. Curtis LeMay of the Tokyo firebombing coolly explained: “We burned down just about every city in North Korea and South Korea both. We killed off over a million civilian Koreans.” The U.S. bombing campaign in Korea was so appalling it inspired artist Pablo Picasso to paint Massacre in Korea, third in his anti-war trilogy that began with Guernica. At No Gun Ri, U.S. forces knowingly targeted South Korean war refugees, killing 163 individuals. Rhee happily joined the killing spree, murdering as many as 200,000 civilians accused of communist sympathies in what came to be known as the Bodo League massacre. When Rhee wasn’t killing deliberately, he was killing through corruption and incompetence. Up to 120,000 soldiers in South Korea’s National Defense Corps died not from battle but from frostbite and malnourishment, as Rhee’s cronies liberally siphoned supplies.
Forever war advocates may say: If mass graves are what is necessary to secure peace, then we must choose mass graves. Byeon must die with her child so South Korea may prosper. To his credit, Kagan came closest to saying this conclusion openly: “If someone had told Americans after 9/11 that they could go two decades without another successful attack but that it would cost 4,000 American lives and $1 trillion, as well as tens of thousands of Afghan lives, would they have rejected it as too high? Likely not.” But this glib claim—the actual number of the dead in Afghanistan is more than 278,000 deaths—obscures the most pernicious effect of the forever war: It distorts the United States to a point that choosing peace is impossible.
This distortion is the reason why North Korea’s denuclearization has been such a fruitless task for decades. The United States can spend many hours discussing the specific points where negotiations fell through. But ultimately, negotiation with North Korea always fails because all relevant parties—North Korea, South Korea and the United States—are inured to the original forever war.
In the United States, for example, many experts (including myself) have advocated for an end-of-war declaration with North Korea. It would be a small step toward trust-building with North Korea, as the declaration would only recognize, as a practical matter, the reality that the Korean War has been over for decades. Yet many in Washington have opposed this simple measure, supposedly out of concern that the declaration might weaken the U.S.-South Korea alliance—oblivious, apparently, that two countries may form an alliance in the state of peace. Unless the United States abandons the mindset that kept it in a losing war for the past 20 years, it will not see progress in ending its longest war.
8. Opportunities and Pitfalls of an End of War Declaration for Korea
Let me state:
I support peace on the Korean peninsula
I support a diplomatic solution to the north Korean nuclear threat
I support ROK engagement with the north
We must understand the true nature, objectives, and strategy of the Kim family regime and develop our policies and strategies based on that understanding.
I do not support a weakening of the ROK and ROK/US defensive capabilities
I believe there cannot be success for US, ROK, and Japanese interests without strong ROK/US and Japan/US alliances. (and good tri-lateral coordination)
Despite the above I think we have to accept that north Korea has a continued hostile strategy and therefore while we prioritize diplomacy, we have to remain prepared for the worst cases. I hope I am wrong here and that Kim Jong-un will dismantle his nuclear weapons and seek peaceful co-existence.
And let me say again: The idea that an end of war declaration will lead to negotiations and denuclearization is also a fallacy. In the end Kim will only participate in an end of war declaration if it includes the end of the alliance and the removal of US troops from the Korean peninsula as that is what Kim needs to support his political warfare and long term strategy. He will not accept an end of war declaration as a security guarantee unless it includes an end to the alliance and removal of troops and an end to extended deterrence and the nuclear umbrella. Paradoxically, an end of war declaration will not provide a security guarantee to the ROK either because the nKPA remains pasurteed for offensive operations and to bring a great deal of death and destruction to Seoul. Negotiation of an end of war declaration must include the north shifting to a defense posture 20-40 KM north of the DMZ and removal of artillery, rocket, and missile systems from the Kaesong Heights.
Opportunities and Pitfalls of an End of War Declaration for Korea - Korea Economic Institute of America
The Peninsula
Opportunities and Pitfalls of an End of War Declaration for Korea
Published September 2, 2021
After the first U.S-North Korea summit held in Singapore in 2018, President Donald Trump and Chairman Kim Jong-un vowed to “establish new U.S.–DPRK relations in accordance with the desire of the peoples of the two countries for peace and prosperity.” Although an end of war declaration has been identified as one way for both sides to realize this goal, such a document has yet to be negotiated. While an end of war declaration poses some opportunities for cooperation between the U.S. and North Korea, there are also reasons why it may not accomplish its stated aims.
At its core, an end of war declaration would be a short document simply recognizing that there was no conflict on the Korean Peninsula. “It is a declaration of intent; that is, both sides affirm the war is over, war is not an alternative, and problems need to be resolved peacefully,” said Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. Although it would be negotiated between government representatives, it would not have the binding of a legal treaty. It would also not address other substantive issues related to North Korea, such as its abysmal human rights record, any of its conventional or nuclear weapons, or economic cooperation with other states.
Any proposed end of war declaration for Korea would be far less detailed than other political agreements such as the Iran Deal or the Paris Climate Accords. South Korea, which has been pushing for an end of war declaration under President Moon, likely does not envision “a specific roadmap or detailed plan” in an end of war declaration, says Minseon Ku, a PhD candidate at The Ohio University. In comparison with the aforementioned agreements, the lack of details in an end of war declaration “makes it even harder for us to say that the other party has broken it,” she said. “It actually gives less justification for either side to accuse each other of doing something.”
Thus an end of war declaration should be viewed as a tool to set the stage for a legal document that would end the threat of conflict in Korea. Jessica Lee, a senior fellow from the Quincy Institute, said that the armistice agreement signed in 1953, was never expected to hold for seven decades. “We need a permanent peace treaty to replace the temporary armistice that was…supposed to be a placeholder for a more permanent agreement,” she said during a webinar in July for KEI. “Declaring peace with North Korea is a necessary first step in reducing the threat of its nuclear weapons, as well as advancing American interests in a more stable Korean Peninsula,” Ms. Lee also said.
To enhance the end of war declaration, the U.S. and South Korea should be packaged with other trust-building policies geared towards North Korea. Writing for Responsible Statecraft, Daniel Jasper of the American Friends Service Committee identified revising sanctions that obstruct humanitarian work in North Korea. “These regulations can and should be changed to allow humanitarian agencies the access they need when North Korea reopens its borders,” he says. Daniel Wertz, senior advisor to the National Committee on North Korea, says that there is also the repatriation of the remains of American servicemen, as well as reunions for Korean-Americans with family members in North Korea. Changes to joint military exercises by the U.S. and ROK would also fit in the theme of ending hostilities with the end of war document. “It’s got to be paired with actions that signify, on both sides, the desire to actually change the relationship,” he said.
On the allied side, a peace declaration could create political space for better relations with the North. Ms. Ku says South Koreans may change their mindset towards the North. “We can now face them as an equal, interacting just as how two equal states are interacting with each other,” she said. On the American side, it would reinvigorate the domestic conversation about Korea. Ms. Ku says that in her interactions with students, “very few of them were actually aware that the war has been on-going for seventy years.”
It is less clear how a peace declaration would be viewed in the North. But Pyongyang has shown flexibility in how it presents external threats, which it bases its domestic legitimacy. Ms. Ku recalls official North Korean coverage of the Singapore Summit. On that day, the Rodong Sinmun simultaneously published pictures of President Trump and Chairman Kim together, along with articles sharply critical of the United States. “I think Kim Jong-un…definitely has the monopoly power on the type of information that they want to reveal to the public, and how that message is being conveyed,” she said. Declaring peace with the U.S. thus may not undermine the North Korean government, a priority for the regime.
Critics of an end of war declaration point to a very long list of agreements that North Korea has broken previously. Even the armistice of 1953 has been violated by North Korea. “North Korea for its part, doesn’t even seem to acknowledge or even think that the war is really over,” said Markus Garlauskas, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, during the KEI webinar. Dr. Jeong-ho Roh, director of the Center for Korean Legal Studies at Columbia Law School, points also to the non-aggression pact signed between the two Koreas in 1991. “That was signed as kind of the closest thing to a peace treaty that you can get short of a peace treaty,” said Dr. Roh. “It got us nowhere.” Indeed, that agreement ended up being “nullified” in 2013.
But allowing the current situation to continue is also dangerous. “If sanctions aren’t enough, and if military action really isn’t an option, all you’re left with is diplomacy,” said Mr. Bandow. Declaring peace with North Korea would not mean that security concerns on the Korean Peninsula would suddenly disappear. “We have to act,” he said. “Just sitting around, hoping it doesn’t happen will not be helpful.”
Still, by putting off perhaps the most contentious issue at stake on the Korean Peninsula, an end of war declaration may end up precipitating the next conflict. Writing for The National Interest, Bruce Klingner of the Heritage Foundation argues that peace should come only after addressing the roots of conflict. “A peace agreement must create conditions more conducive to peace than the armistice which it would replace,” he writes.
An example of an insufficient peace is World War II. Dr. Roh points out that it was not the surrender of Japan in 1945 that ended the war, but rather the Treaty of San Francisco in 1951. And even that was not a comprehensive end, as the war with the Republic of China did not end until 1952, with the Treaty of Taipei. To this day, Tokyo has still not reached a treaty with Moscow to end the war with Russia, the successor state of the Soviet Union. “It’s the con of the century to expect the end of war declaration to really say that it’s the end of the war,” said Dr. Roh. “If you merely declare end of the Korean War even though the nature of North Korea has changed, that’s an incomplete answer.”
Terrence Matsuo is a Contributing Author at the Korea Economic Institute of America. The views expressed here are the author’s alone.
Image from the Republic of Korea’s photostream on flickr Creative Commons.
V/R
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Phone: 202-573-8647
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
