Korean security cloudy 60 years after war
By John J. Metzler
UNITED NATIONS ― Sixty years after the start of the war, the security situation on the still-divided Korean Peninsula remains problematic and defined by a massive million-man military faceoff.
Though South Korea has prospered, emerging as one of East Asia's economic and political success stories, the communist North remains locked in a neo-Stalinist time warp.
Over the past few years, new tensions have shadowed the tenuous truce as Pyongyang regime has tested nuclear weapons, medium- and long-range missiles, and recently carried out an unprovoked and deadly torpedo attack on a South Korean naval vessel killing 46 sailors.
In the early morning hours of June 25, 1950, North Korean forces launched a surprise attack into the South. In the initial and absolute chaos of what would become a three-year seesaw conflict, the communist troops seized Seoul and most of the rest of the fledgling republic.
Quick action by the U.N. Security Council and able and adroit diplomacy of then-American Ambassador Warren Austin was able to get resolutions through the council which established a multinational force to rebuff the aggression.
Given the fortuitous blunder that the Soviets were boycotting the Security Council meetings in deference to their then Chinese communist comrades, the resolutions passed without a veto from Moscow, but support from Britain, France, Nationalist China and the United States.
Led by Supreme force Commander General Douglas MacArthur, the United States, along with 16 countries ranging from Britain, Canada, France, South Africa and Turkey among others were slogged down in the struggle. Only in 1953 was there an armistice, a truce, but never a formal treaty ending the Korean War.
Fifty-four thousand Americans died in this conflict, ``The Forgotten War" which is recalled even by few movies save for the iconic "Bridges of Toko Ri," "Battle Hymn," and "The Manchurian Candidate."
Epic events like MacArthur's brilliant Incheon Landings, Pork Chop Hill, or the Busan Perimeter are largely forgotten. Generations of young Americans have scant knowledge of this major post-WWII conflict.
The 38th parallel, the arbitrary line dividing the peninsula on a North-South line, rips into the very heart and soul of the historic Korean nation. One people and one culture have been separated by two political systems.
In the North, totalitarian rule in the quaintly titled Democratic People's Republic of Korea is counterbalanced by the socio/political democracy in the South.
Since the 1970s South Korea has been an amazing socio-economic saga. And following the successful hosting of the Seoul Summer Olympics in 1988, South Korea emerged as a player on the global stage. South Korea is among the U.S.'s top 10 trading partners.
Political democratization, economic progress, and a growing global presence put South Korea on the short list of successful international players.
I still recall when both South and North Korea were admitted into the U.N. back in 1991 after 40 years of political frustration. Now a South Korean, Ban Ki-moon is the secretary general of the 192-member organization.
Recently Seoul's diplomats presented the case of the sinking of the Cheonan, a South Korean naval vessel which mysteriously sank in March.
A joint civilian-military investigation group composed or Korean and foreign experts asserted ``The Cheonan was split apart and sunk owing to a shockwave and bubble effect produced by an underwater explosion … the weapon system used is confirmed to be a high explosive torpedo with a net explosive weight of about 250kg manufactured by North Korea." The report concludes that ``the torpedo was fired by a North Korean submarine."
While Seoul seeks a serious political condemnation of the communist North, a rebuke is unlikely given that People's Republic of China will not allow such an action.
While Beijing and Seoul have close commercial relations, one cannot overlook the still close ``comradely political ties" between Beijing and Pyongyang. Thus any serious Security Council action beyond the study of documents and dossiers regarding the issue is highly unlikely.
North Korea vehemently denies the charges and is spreading a harvest of disinformation as to their validity.
Yet the point remains that North Korea's bizarre Marxist monarchy is in the midst of a delicate political transition from the feeble ``Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il to one of his sons.
Creating mischief in the atmosphere of the U.S. being tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan may be part of Pyongyang's calculation. The U.S. remains treaty-bound to defend South Korea.
Given the stakes, nobody, least of all in militarily vulnerable South Korea, would wish to see these storm clouds linger any longer.
John J. Metzler is a United Nations correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He is the author of ``Divided Dynamism ― The Diplomacy of Separated Nations; Germany, Korea, China" (University Press, 2001). He can be reached at jjmcolumn@earthlink.net.