By Michael Breen
In the six decades of their division, the strategic objective of both Koreas has been re-unification.
Given that, you’d think we would have a plan.
But we don’t. The North does. You can see their consistency. The plan is embodied in its leader who is in power for life. In the superior South, though, we just react to stuff. We have policies that change when things don’t work or when a new president is elected.
But there is no plan, no blueprint that a new president inherits (and gets to debate and change if she wants).
Surely, you might think, the National Intelligence Service has one? Or, the Unification Ministry or Defense Ministry think-tanks? It’s reasonable to assume they do. But, I am told by a former presidential national security advisor, they don’t.
It gets worse. Besides the 10-Year Land Use Plan, I’m not aware of any central government planning in Korea that reaches beyond the term of the current president.
The reason is that, while South Korea is now a democracy, the president still has monarchic powers that do not require her to accept initiatives set in motion by predecessors. Remember green growth? No? I rest my case.
The people, the National Assembly, the media and the bureaucracy accept the monarchic president. Democracy, they seem to think, is a good thing because it allows them to criticize her. It should push them to reduce her powers but it doesn’t.
This means that the unification policy of each new incumbent starts with, “Anything but what the last administration did.”
Well, not quite. Article 4 of the Constitution says the country “seeks unification” and makes the important point that the approach and end result must be “peaceful” and based on the “principles of freedom and democracy.”
What we really need is a 50-year plan that spells out this vision and puts color on the page. Such a blueprint will not be perfect, and may need to be adjusted. But, by making the goals and issues explicit, it will help provide the strategic sense for tactical action that, right now as is evident from the debate around the closure of the Gaesesong Industrial Complex, we don’t have.
It may also help prevent our side from taking action that could provoke a war.
Michael Breen is the CEO of Insight Communications Consultants, a public relations company, and author of The Koreans and Kim Jong-il: North Korea’s Dear Leader.