ed Higher waves in West Sea

Same efforts needed for security, peace

Two years ago Friday, the two Koreas became embroiled in an artillery duel in the West Sea triggered by the North’s unprovoked strike.

Looking back, the first North Korean military attack on South Korean soil in 57 years and the South’s immediate retaliation was the closest the divided peninsula came to another all-out war since the two sides suspended their three-year conflict with a truce in 1953.

Today, tensions in the Yellow Sea have barely subsided and are rather escalating anew with both Koreas claiming victory and, at the same time, vowing revenge for previous losses.

Both sides have made massive military buildups to defend their respective maritime territory, pledging to hit back at the ``origin of provocation with ten, and even hundred, times the firepower.” And this explains why the Northern Limit Line has emerged as the most likely flash point for the peninsula.

It is only natural that civilians as well as government and military officials renewed their determination to repel any North Korean threats at a ceremony commemorating the anniversary on Yeonpyeong Island, the target of the North’s shelling 24 months ago. No one can overemphasize the importance of airtight national defense as the very foundation of this country.

No less important, however, are efforts to dissolve the cause of the threat.

It is regrettable in this regard that the Lee Myung-bak administration has resorted to a single-minded policy based on inter-Korea confrontation. And this compares with the shift in U.S. policy since the Yeonpyeong incident to a two-track approach of pressure and dialogue. American strategists, unlike their South Korean counterparts, know all too well that limited warfare is nearly impossible on this peninsula where the two capital cities are within close proximity of each other.

There is another important reason Seoul should not underestimate the risks of another fratricidal conflict here: North Korea is not an ordinary country but a unique regime that lives on tension. So the peninsula fits the maxim of ``think of peace while preparing for war” more than anywhere else in the world. What matters most is how to turn the abnormal state in the north into a normal one through various diplomatic initiatives. It is far more difficult than the politicized and ideological slogan of ``down with the commies” heard among inter-Korean hawks.

The hard-line government’s security stance has proved not as hard as it brags it to be, as demonstrated by the recent defection by a North Korean solider, who not just easily walked past three South Korean barricades but had to knock on the door of a South Korean barracks twice to get anyone’s attention.

These hawks call for Seoul to follow the example of Israel, which responds with merciless counterattacks for any provocation. Nothing is more dangerous than a wrong comparison. Instead, the next leader should learn from how Beijing and Taipei resolved the Taiwan Strait crisis by changing Kinmen Island from a powder keg into a symbol of peace and prosperity.

Few leaders can talk about peace and security unless they are able, or at least willing, to turn Yeonpyeong Island into Korea’s Kinmen.