By Michael Breen
With little North Korea ― its population is less than that of greater Seoul ― unlikely to give up nuclear weapons, it seems this issue will only be resolved when the two Koreas address the underlying conflict that drives them to arm themselves in the first place.
Here is the issue. Unlike all other neighboring states today, the two Koreas claim sovereignty over one another.
And even though the South has become an advanced economy and a modern democracy, and even though the North stumbles along as a weak, backward dictatorship, neither has taken a single step to alter that posture.
Each, in other words, remains committed to unification.
This idea ― "tongil" in Korean ― is more than an explanation of the national vision. It is a magic word which stirs the soul. It fills Koreans with sadness, for it underscores their self-perception as victims of history. And it fills them with a sense of virtuous nationalistic purpose. Unification, they feel, is a dream worth sacrificing for.
But, viewed dispassionately, what is unification? Isn't it a land grab? Isn't that why, when one side talks about unification, the other reaches for its guns.
Surely the best sacrifice would not be to sacrifice young men in battle for unification, but to sacrifice the objective of unification to achieve real peace.
I've bounced this idea off South Koreans in recent weeks and so far no takers.
But what if they could be persuaded to drop it? Would it not remove the tension from the peninsula if the two sides agreed to pursue their respective futures as separate nations?
Well, it would take the edge off things. But there would still be confrontation because the four countries in this part of the world do not share the same values. South Korea and Japan are democracies while China is like South Korea when it was a dictatorship under Park Chung-hee and North Korea is like China was under Mao Zedong.
But at least they wouldn't both be jostling to annex each other.
But, as I say, there aren't any takers for this idea. And that leaves us with only one other strategy. That is, the wait ― long as it may be ― for a change in North Korea to a regime willing to at least drop the violent option for unification.
To nudge this along, South Korea and its allies should engage the North for the singular purpose of infecting as many North Koreans as possible with the freedom virus. We should do what the Americans and their allies did with the Soviets: talk, engage, swap embassies and ballet performances and all that, and get the two Koreas doing the same ― not because this will lead to peace but because the whiff of freedom will get up their nose and work its destructive magic.
At the same time, we should do that other thing the U.S. did with the Soviets and have South Korea start an arms race on the peninsula that the North Koreans cannot win.
Michael Breen is the author of "The New Koreans."
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Here is the issue. Unlike all other neighboring states today, the two Koreas claim sovereignty over one another.
And even though the South has become an advanced economy and a modern democracy, and even though the North stumbles along as a weak, backward dictatorship, neither has taken a single step to alter that posture.
Each, in other words, remains committed to unification.
This idea ― "tongil" in Korean ― is more than an explanation of the national vision. It is a magic word which stirs the soul. It fills Koreans with sadness, for it underscores their self-perception as victims of history. And it fills them with a sense of virtuous nationalistic purpose. Unification, they feel, is a dream worth sacrificing for.
But, viewed dispassionately, what is unification? Isn't it a land grab? Isn't that why, when one side talks about unification, the other reaches for its guns.
Surely the best sacrifice would not be to sacrifice young men in battle for unification, but to sacrifice the objective of unification to achieve real peace.
I've bounced this idea off South Koreans in recent weeks and so far no takers.
But what if they could be persuaded to drop it? Would it not remove the tension from the peninsula if the two sides agreed to pursue their respective futures as separate nations?
Well, it would take the edge off things. But there would still be confrontation because the four countries in this part of the world do not share the same values. South Korea and Japan are democracies while China is like South Korea when it was a dictatorship under Park Chung-hee and North Korea is like China was under Mao Zedong.
But at least they wouldn't both be jostling to annex each other.
But, as I say, there aren't any takers for this idea. And that leaves us with only one other strategy. That is, the wait ― long as it may be ― for a change in North Korea to a regime willing to at least drop the violent option for unification.
To nudge this along, South Korea and its allies should engage the North for the singular purpose of infecting as many North Koreans as possible with the freedom virus. We should do what the Americans and their allies did with the Soviets: talk, engage, swap embassies and ballet performances and all that, and get the two Koreas doing the same ― not because this will lead to peace but because the whiff of freedom will get up their nose and work its destructive magic.
At the same time, we should do that other thing the U.S. did with the Soviets and have South Korea start an arms race on the peninsula that the North Koreans cannot win.
Michael Breen is the author of "The New Koreans."
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