Debate heats up over main enemy deion

Field military units strengthen education on NK threat since ship sinking

By Jung Sung-ki

The South Korean military has been reinforcing troop information and education to deal with possible North Korean threats since the sinking of the Cheonan ship in March amid controversy over whether to label the North as the “main enemy” in the country’s defense white paper.

In the last few years, the Seoul government has gone back and forth over whether to continue to designate North Korea as the main enemy.

The country’s Defense White Paper first referred to North Korea as the main enemy in 1995 after the communist regime threatened to turn Seoul into “a sea of fire” in a 1994 inter-Korean military meeting.

A decade later, in 2004 under the Kim Dae-jung administration which advocated the “Sunshine Policy” of engaging the communist neighbor, the description was no longer applied. It was a symbolic change aimed to reduce tension between the decades-old archrivals.

Nevertheless, debate on the main enemy reference has continued, as military threats posed by North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs have ever increased, destabilizing the security of the peninsula.

Following the deadly Cheonan sinking, which Seoul believes was caused by a North Korean torpedo attack, President Lee Myung-bak hinted at re-designating the North as South Korea’s main enemy in the Defense White Paper 2010 to be published later this year.

A draft version of this year’s white paper, however, is still missing the main enemy expression, according to the Ministry of National Defense.

“The concept of the main enemy has already existed in our military, so the words could be immaterial,” a ministry spokesman told The Korea Times. “It’s obvious whose army is lined up on the other side of the Demilitarized Zone.”

Baek Seung-joo, a senior researcher at the state-funded Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, said the clarification of North Korea as the main enemy should be reviewed from a long-term perspective, in a careful and measured way. It should not be swayed by political and military situations each and every time, he said.

“The defense white paper is frequently cited by foreign journals and serves as an important diplomatic document,” Baek said. “Against that backdrop, we should review carefully whether the description of a main enemy in the defense paper would be a burden for the country’s diplomatic and inter-Korean affairs or not.”

Critics say, however, calling the North the main enemy would serve as a helpful clarification in developing policies toward one of the world’s most provocative yet secretive regimes.

“Most South Korean people think the North is the main enemy. We should stop being engaged in a consumptive debate over the clarification of North Korea as the main enemy,” Rep. Kim Sung-jo, a chief policy maker of the ruling Grand National Party.

“Far from improving inter-Korean relations since 2003, North Korea invaded the Northern Limit Line (NLL) in the West Sea several times, conducted two rounds of nuclear tests, killed a South Korean tourist at the Mountain Geumgang resort and engaged in other provocations,” the lawmaker said. “These are clear incidents that indicate North Korea is our main enemy. There is no reason to hesitate to call the North the main enemy.”

Troop education

Aside from the politically-charged debate, field military units have actually been strengthening troop information and education on the potential threat of North Korea since the Cheonan incident, which claimed the lives of 46 sailors.

A Seoul-led multinational team of investigators determined in May that the frigate was sunk by a torpedo fired from a North Korean submarine. North Korea has denied any involvement in the incident.

“The amount of troop information and education on North Korea’s threat has almost doubled since the Cheonan sinking,” an Army troop information and education officer said in a telephone interview. “Distrust of the results of the Cheonan investigation has apparently grown among enlisted soldiers, so we needed to increase and strengthen weekly education on the concept of the northern enemy.”

The expression, however, of “main enemy” may not be necessary as long as the concept of enemy is clear to the troops, the officer said.

“I believe clarifying the main enemy in the defense white paper is a separate issue,” he added.

But the Army’s latest policy report expresses that “North Korea is our main enemy.” Showing the results of a survey on the views of new conscripts on security affairs, the report said the perception of North Korea as the main enemy has increased from 49 to 94 percent in recent years.

The Army said the expression was used just for the survey, not to clarify the North as the main enemy officially.

Skepticism about ship sinking probe

Despite pan-governmental efforts to confirm that North Korea was behind the sinking of Cheonan, skepticism among the public remains high about the investigation results.

A poll conducted by Realmeter earlier this month revealed that 40 percent of South Koreans have doubts about the investigation. Skepticism was highest among the young. Only 27.3 percent of those in their 20s said they believe the results of the investigation.

Of those 50 and older, nearly 60 percent said they trust the report, according to the poll, which had a 3.7 percent margin of error.

In a poll conducted in July, Seoul National University’s Institute for Peace and Unification Studies found that South Koreans are split in their opinions.

Results showed 32.5 percent of respondents had at least some confidence in the findings; 35.7 percent said they “completely distrust” or “tend to distrust” them; and the remaining 31.8 percent said they did not know.

To counter skepticism, the defense ministry released hard-bound copies of its investigation report both in English and Korean on Sept. 13 for sale in book stores.

It also published the content in a comic book form that outlines the government’s case against North Korea. The comic book ― pages of which are interlaced with real Cheonan wreckage photos ― is being distributed for free to schools, libraries and public offices.

There are still unanswered questions, such as how a blue marking on the recovered torpedo fragment that read “No. 1” in Korean was able to survive the blast and remain submerged in water.

There is also doubt about several government errors ranging from knowingly presenting the diagram of the wrong torpedo during a May press conference held to announce the investigation results, to not fully briefing opposition party members on the progress of the investigation at the time following the attack.