Don't overestimate your enemy
By Choi Sung-jin
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There is a giant bronze statue at the War Memorial of Korea at Yongsan, Seoul, next to the former headquarters of the U.S. Forces Korea.
The statue depicts two figures tightly holding each other ― a South Korean officer and his younger brother, a North Korean soldier. It is reportedly based on a true story of brothers who took part in a battle in Wonju, Gangwon Province, during the 1950-53 Korean War.
According to an unconfirmed story, North Korea once complained about the statue, a sad reminder of the tragic fratricidal war, for describing the North as the smaller and weaker sibling. The description was apt, however, considering the massive gap in economic and military power even back in 1994 when the memorial completed its construction.
The gulf has grown far wider now with the South’s GDP more than 40 times larger than the North’s. Seoul’s annual defense spending also quadrupled that of Pyongyang, almost equal to the latter’s entire budget over the past decade.
No amount of these objective statistics seems to allay the fears of the North among the South Korean conservatives, however.
Even before Pyongyang allegedly succeeded in developing nuclear weapons, these conservatives had regarded North Korea as a formidable foe that can always communize the entire peninsula if it wishes to ― and if the United States does not step in.
Now that Kim Jong-un boasts he can hit the U.S. mainland with nuclear-tipped ICBMs, their phobia has become all but hysteria.
Yes, atomic bombs can be a game changer, as seen in 1945. Minutes after a North Korean nuclear missile reaches Los Angeles, Tokyo or Seoul, however, the entire northern half of this divided peninsula will disappear from the World Atlas, as all U.S. political leaders, Republican or Democratic, have affirmed several times.
The North’s young, unpredictable leader may still go insane and opt to destroy himself, his regime and his entire country. But such a scenario will not become a reality unless it becomes certain the U.S. is making a pre-emptive strike.
A lunatic may sacrifice his life to amputate others’ limbs. Can a nation do so, though?
Looking back, there were more than a few opportunities to keep the isolationist regime from owning even a single nuclear warhead.
If the U.S. and Japan had recognized North Korea and normalized their relationships with the North in the early 1990s, when Russia and China recognized the South, the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia might have been far more peaceful ― and probably prosperous ― than it is now.
Had Washington and Pyongyang stuck to the 1994 Agreed Framework faithfully, things could have been very different from now. U.S. and South Korean hard-liners point out the North has never stopped its nuclear development programs behind their backs, but these hawks provided Pyongyang with more than enough excuses for breaking promises.
Now everybody’s attention is on early April after the PyeongChang Paralympics are over and annual South Korea-U.S. joint military drills begin. Diplomatic watchers do not rule out the possibility of Washington’s taking a military option if Pyongyang resumes a nuclear test and/or missile launches in tit-for-tat tactics.
None other than U.S. President Donald Trump is brandishing a “very rough Phase 2” action hinting at a pre-emptive attack.
The self-styled genius in negotiation may or may not mean it, but any misunderstanding on the part of Trump’s North Korean counterpart will bring about a catastrophic result. As Otto von Bismarck once said, “Preventive war is like committing suicide out of fear of death.”
President Moon Jae-in’s attempts to make the most of the Winter Olympics truce for bringing Washington and Pyongyang back to the dialogue table may go nowhere, although the two foes are cautiously moving to have talks.
As Moon urged in meetings with the U.S. and North Korean delegates to the Olympics, Washington needs to lower barriers for talks while Pyongyang should show a modicum of intention for denuclearization.
Moon should send a special envoy to both Pyongyang and Washington to coordinate the conditions for their resumption of talks.
Some are cautioning against the speeding in inter-Korean rapprochement without a corresponding thaw in the relationship between North Korea and the U.S.
However, Moon should stick to his strategy of improving ties between the Koreas first and using this as the leverage in talks to denuclearize the North. He should keep in mind the famous saying of Albert Einstein: “Peace cannot be kept by force. Peace is possible only when we understand each other.”
Like it or not, there can be no other mediator but Seoul. Trump’s foreign policy team seems to have no detailed policy on North Korea. The U.S. leader appears to be a fundamentalist and isolationist in foreign policy while grafting his business style to diplomacy.
He is ignorant but arrogant. China has also lost much of its leverage on North Korea and is unlikely to restore it unless going to an end ― either squeezing the North till the end or entirely dropping sanctions. Japan has been a reluctant spectator of inter-Korean detente from the start.
Underestimating an enemy is of course dangerous. Overestimating the adversary to an unreasonable extent as well as demonizing it can be equally harmful. This is particularly true if the exaggeration of the threat is aimed to maintain the status quo or avoid the peaceful settlement of the crisis.
No one can look over the North’s ultimate intention. That said, only when Seoul looks at Pyongyang ― its strengths and weaknesses ― precisely as it is, can the South remain in the driver’s seat in handling inter-Korean affairs.
Choi Sung-jin is a Korea Times columnist. Contact him at choisj1955@naver.com.