Divided Korea: Toward a Culture of Reconciliation

Preface: A Rogue Is a Rogue Is a Rogue

ix Preface A Rogue Is a Rogue Is a Rogue There฀is฀something฀about฀this฀peninsula฀which฀has฀repelled฀investigation. —฀ isabell a฀l.฀bird,฀฀฀฀:฀ ฀฀฀,฀฀฀฀ ฀฀฀฀฀฀ ฀฀฀,฀1897 Old฀times฀must฀be฀sent฀away. —ko฀un,฀“song฀of฀peace฀from฀jeju฀isl a nd” Few conflicts are as protracted as the one in Korea, where deeply hostile and anachronistic Cold War attitudes have posed major security problems for half a century. To be more precise, two specters haunt the peninsula: a military escalation, even outright war, and a North Korean collapse, which could easily destabilize the northeast Asian region.1 Dealing with North Korea is perhaps one of the most difficult security challenges in global politics today. Totalitarian and reclusive, ideologically isolated and economically ruined, it is the inherent “other” in a globalized and neoliberal world order. Yet North Korea survives, not least because its leaders periodically rely on threats, such as nuclear brinkmanship, to gain concessions from the international community. The latest such attempt occurred in the autumn of 2002, when Pyongyang admitted to a secret nuclear weapons program and subsequently withdrew from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. x฀ ฀ ·฀ ฀ preface From then on, the situation rapidly deteriorated. By early 2003 both the United States and North Korea were threatening each other with outright war. Even Japan, in its most militaristic posture in decades, publicly contemplated the possibility of a preemptive strike against North Korea.2 The dangers of North Korea’s nuclear brinkmanship are evident and much discussed. Miscalculations or a sudden escalation could precipitate a human disaster at any moment. Equally dangerous, although much less evident, are the confrontational and militaristic attitudes with which some of the key regional and global players seek to contain the volatile situation. Particularly problematic is the approach of the most influential external actor on the peninsula, the United States. Washington’s inability to see North Korea as anything but a threatening “rogue state” seriously hinders both an adequate understanding and potential resolution of the conflict. Few policy makers, security analysts, and journalists ever try to imagine how North Korean decision makers perceive these threats and how these perceptions are part of an interactive security dilemma in which the West is implicated as much as is the vilified regime in Pyongyang. Particularly significant is the current policy of preemptive strikes against rogue states, for it reinforces half a century of American nuclear threats toward North Korea. The problematic role of these threats has been largely obscured, not least because the highly technical discourse of security analysis has managed to present the strategic situation on the peninsula in a manner that attributes responsibility for the crisis solely to North Korea’s actions, even if the situation is in reality far more complex and interactive. A fundamental rethinking of security is required if the current culture of insecurity is to give way to a more stable and peaceful environment. Contributing to this task is my main objective of this book. I do so by exploring insights and options broader than those articulated by most security studies specialists. While pursuing this objective I offer neither a comprehensive take on the Korean security situation nor a detailed update on the latest events. Various excellent books have already done so.3 I seek not new facts and data but new perspectives. I identify broad patterns of conflict and embark on a conceptual engagement with some of the ensuing dilemmas. I aspire to what Gertrude Stein sought to capture through a poetic preface฀ ฀ ·฀ ฀ xi metaphor:4 the political and moral obligation to question the immutability of the status quo; the need to replace old and highly problematic Cold War thinking patterns with new and more sensitive attempts to address the dilemmas of Korean security. BET WEEN฀SEOUL,฀PANMUNJOM,฀AND฀PYONGYANG Before I outline exactly what rethinking Korean security entails, I must be honest and present my own reasons for seeking to understand these dilemmas. I am doing so not to aggrandize myself or to suggest that my person was or is of any relevance to the events in question. I am doing so because a story, subjectively experienced as it inevitably is, can at times capture a political dilemma more precisely than (or at least differently from) the type of scholarly work that will follow. Also, I feel that this is the only intellectually honest approach , particularly when it comes to engaging a topic like Korean security, which is emotionally and...