What if N. Korea stages strike now?

By Oh Young-jin

We have heard it all before, read it before and seen it before.

Still, it would sound conspiratorially fresh.

It's about the northern wind: North Korea's alleged attempt to influence South Korea at its critical juncture, sometimes on a contract from South Korea.

The South is entering a political crisis as the result of the revelation that President Park Geun-hye is nothing but a façade with real power being wielded by her confidant of 40 years, Choi Soon-sil. Park is set to face a probe by special prosecutor and may be rendered powerless, causing a power vacuum at the top.

Now, my colleague, from a purely political engineering point of view, conjectured on a way for Park to regain her power by commissioning the North.

His case goes: Park aides contact with the North to ask it to mount an attack the scale of its torpedo attack on the Cheonan frigate, the bombardment on Yeongpyeong Island or a more risky attack on land.

Then, tensions would be jacked up many notches at once and people would get scared about the prospect of military conflict, forcing them to rally back around the leader. History doesn't rule out this interesting twist of inter-Korean cooperation.

First of all, there are two "proven" attempts to enlist the North's help.

The so-called gun wind took place ahead of the Dec. 18, 1997, presidential election.

A low-level presidential aide made contact with a North Korean official in Beijing and requested that the North conduct a show of force on the border as an attempt to help then conservative candidate Lee Hoe-chang. Lee's opponent and eventual winner of the election was Kim Dae-jung, who promoted closer ties with the North.

In the court battle that was settled by the Supreme Court, it was concluded that it was not directly related to the candidate Lee and was an uncoordinated individual act.

Also around that time, the nation's top intelligence official, Kwon Young-hae, tried to have his agent working with the North to thwart Kim Dae-jung's election. A senior whistleblower made it public, throwing Kwon behind bars. The codename of this operation is "Black Venus."

Most of other cases are more circumstantial with political forces in the South trying to turn the tables when pushed into a corner.

Ahead of the 18th presidential election, the ruling Saenuri Party argued that the late President Roh Moo-hyun agreed to concede the northern limit line (NLL), the virtual inter-Korean border in the West Sea during the second South-North summit in October 2007. As the controversy dragged on, it helped conservative voters rally, denting the credibility of the opposition candidate, Moon Jae-in, Roh's chief of staff.

Moon lost to the incumbent President Park by a small margin. It was proved that Roh didn't say anything to sell out the NLL.

A week ahead of the June 2, 2010, local elections, then President Lee Myung-bak executed the all-out suspension of inter-Korean exchange in retaliation over the Cheonan tragedy two months earlier. The election results defied expectations of the ruling party's lopsided victory but rather produced one of balance.

The North has habitually tried to influence the South.

Twice in recent weeks, it sent a northern wind southward but it didn't work. The former Foreign Minister Song Min-soon's claim that his boss, the late President Roh, had consulted the North and refrained in the vote for a resolution against the North's human rights violations at the United Nations in 2007.

The North denied that there was any consultation. It was by and large dismissed as an attempt to stir up ideological divisions in the South. Also, regarding the Choi Soon-sil gate, it attacked President Park for being incompetent.

The North is attacking Park with gusto for being uncompromising in her hard line policy against the North. She closed the Gaeseong Industrial Complex, a flagship inter-Korean business project, which any of her precedents, conservative or progressive, had not dared to close, despite allegations that the North gained tens of millions of dollars and used it for missile and nuclear development. Then, she also has openly talked about regime change in the North.

That could be the very reason that can lend a sense of reality to my colleague's conjecture. It may start with an exchange of fire on the West Sea involving a number of casualties or a contest of gunfire across a point on the border near the truce village of Panmunjeom. Then, the North would put all its forces on high alert with thousands of artillery pieces and rockets at the ready and mobile missile launchers on the move.

The South would act in kind.

The theory goes: Being on the brink of war, the nation would turn to its discredited leader known for her strong stance against the enemy.

Of course, it would be another matter whether the leader has the North to send the northern wind or the North has taken the job without being solicited in hopes of settling the bill later.

My colleague's theory would be best kept as a source of conspiratorial entertainment.

Still, it is hard to put that out of mind… what if the North strikes now? Could we afford to take a pause and think whether it is a contractual provocation or not?

Oh Young-jin is The Korea Times' chief editorial writer. Contact him at foolsdie5@ktimes.com and foolsdie@gmail.com.