North Korea fired two ballistic missiles into the East Sea late Monday.
The North's latest missile launches come as a nuclear-powered U.S. submarine, the USS Annapolis, arrived at a naval base on Jeju Island.
However, few major Western media outlets published the news as of Tuesday morning (KST). Instead, their primary interest regarding North Korea remained a U.S. soldier, a seeming military misfit and/or petty offender, who willfully crossed the border to enter the North last week.
All this shows that Pyongyang's missile provocations no longer make news as inter-Korean accusations and threats escalate and become routine events. The North launched 65 missiles last year, more than once a week on average.
Still, a top U.S. military official went too far recently.
“I think that the Korean situation is an area that the United States could ― I'm not saying it will, but 'could' ― find itself in a state of war, you know, within a few days, with very little notice,” Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during an interview with Japanese media outlets.
International politics experts here said Milley's intention was probably to highlight America's commitment to maintaining peace and security on the Korean Peninsula, according to a Korea Times story. We agree. But the same experts said he should have been “more prudent” with his words. We also agree with that view. Milley also described the North Korean leader as “unpredictable.” We agree ― again.
Now, put yourself in your opponent's shoes.
Would it be too far-fetched to imagine that some persecution maniacs in Pyongyang, including Kim Jong-un, interpret Milley's remarks as America saying it “could” strike them within a few days and with very little notice?
These maniacs have reasons to think so from at least two past episodes.
In 1994, the Bill Clinton administration planned to bomb the North's nuclear facilities but canceled it. Former President Kim Young-sam told Clinton he would “not send a single South Korean soldier” to a war between America and North Korea. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter later met with Kim Il-sung to defuse tensions.
In 2017, Donald Trump talked frequently, if privately, about preemptive attacks on the North while not ruling out the use of nuclear bombs, according to a New York Times report. His chief of staff, John Kelly, dissuaded his boss, citing economic reasons. Former President Moon Jae-in later arranged summits between Trump and Kim Jong-un.
In both cases, South Korea had not known about the U.S. schemes. Democrats or Republicans, the U.S. leaders “could” hit the North without consultations with Seoul. This divided peninsula managed to avoid catastrophe thanks to a few wise and reasonable figures on both sides of the Pacific.
What if a similar situation occurs now? Do Koreans and Americans have the likes of Kim Young-sam, Carter, Kelly or Moon?
Hardly. Instead, they have Joe Biden and Yoon Suk Yeol. Biden is not as “whimsical” as Trump but no less hostile ― rather callous ― toward Pyongyang. Yoon demonstrated last week he would back any U.S. move against the North on a nuclear-powered U.S. submarine, which can carry “1,600 atomic bombs” equivalent to those that hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Yoon described the inter-Korean detente under his predecessor as based on “fake peace” depending on the North's goodwill. However, most Koreans, South and North, felt at ease at the time. Yoon believes only in peace based on absolute superiority of power as “genuine peace.” But most South Koreans feel growing unease, as shown during a false alarm on May 31.
July 27 is the 70th anniversary of the Korean Armistice Agreement. Artists will issue a “peace declaration” near the inter-Korean border. About three weeks later, leaders of the U.S., Japan and South Korea will meet at Camp David. What Yoon should do at the meeting is not just discuss a trilateral strategy against Pyongyang but also initiate a peace process for this peninsula.
A president's first constitutional duty is to protect the people's safety and reunite the two Koreas “peacefully.”