While normally I find it a bad practice to discuss politics, I thought I'd make an exception here. Easily the most frequent question I was asked before departing the US for Korea was, "what about North Korea, aren't you worried?" And to be honest, it was more than a tad worrisome as missles flew and the North ran their infamous underground nuclear test.
So now that I'm here, what do I think about the whole situation?
First, I have to say that up close and personal, the whole split peninsula affair is terribly sad. Doubly so once you go to the war memorial and realize the depth of the plight for North Koreans and the families on both sides of the DMZ that were torn apart as a result of that war. This is important because this factor, the desire to be reunited and whole again, colors all the politics in the North/South relations. It's why the ROK (Republic of Korea aka South Korea) presses the other parties to act with restraint. It's why the ROK is ready, before the ink is dry on the latest denuclearization agreement, to package up medicine and food aid and ship it off to the north.
Next, you come to realize living here how far the ROK has come and how desperate the people here are NOT to have another war occur. You also realize how badly they do not wish to be burdened by having to financially shore up the impoverished North Koreans on their own. When you consider how far and how fast South Koreans have progressed from a largely destroyed agricultural society to one of the most high tech regions on the planet it is truly amazing (50 years from farming to micro-processors). When you talk to the people here, they know much more clearly than those of us living great, comforting distances from the nearest true dictator, exactly what is at stake and what their fate could have been had the UN forces not banded together on their behalf.
Life in Korea: Living near the "Great Leader"
The Korean Peninsula from space. One of the few times you'll see the peninsula not depicted with the DMZ noted.
So given that, and seeing the landscape up close and personnal, am I worried about living less than 30 miles from the boarder of Kim Il Jung, the self professed "Great Leader"? Not really. For sure, you'd be an idiot not to worry a tad about the guy. He has a huge army stationed barely 30 miles from my home. He has "the bomb". He has terrible taste in clothing and hair styles. And he is by all appearances a bit off his nut and probably one of the more malevolent people on the planet.
But here's the other thing. While he's a megalomaniac and probably fits the definition of several other psychotic maladies, he not so crazy as to think he can really win a war with the ROK and the US. In fact, now that I live here. it's my own side that has worried me more than Mr. Kim across the boarder. While I'm pretty convinced that the North knows it can't really attack the South without coming out on the loosing side, sometimes the position and comments from the other parties has led me to wonder if we knew it would be a terrible idea to try to force the North's hand.
It's also led me to wonder if our political advisors understand the Asian concept of face and how much they back the North into a position of having to rise to our words and present a "hold me back, I'm going to hit him!" persona. In Asian culture to back down or to appear cowed by our sometimes very harsh and demanding language is simply not an option. Sitting at home in the US, I always thought the demanding and plain language comments we made were dead on. Of course they "must dismantle their nuclear program or face international condemnation" and of course they were a part of "the Axis of Evil". But, after living here, and learning first hand how badly blunt speech works in the Korean work place, I now see that it would have been far better to speak very quietly in public and wield our big stick (which no one anywhere in this region denies we have) behind diplomatic doors.
The most recent agreements seem to indicate we have learned this lesson a bit. Nobody is terribly optimistic about the deal holding up in the long term, but there is no doubt in my mind that we have to keep trying to make these deals and keep trying to make them work. In a very real sense, what else is there to do?
No military option can work. Outside of the fact that it would devastate Asia and the ROK in particular, the US can hardly wage a war on yet another front. Add to that the nuclear potential of the conflict and a lack of clarity on how China might react, this could be a globally devastating conflict - if not on a military scale then almost certainly on a financial markets scale
You also can't force a hard crash of the North Korean economy like was done in Germany and Russia. While probably easy enough to bring about, the region would be flooded with North Korean refugees and a humanitarian disaster probably of unequalled proportions would ensue. We'd be talking about 23 million people suddenly without even the poor infrastructure they already have. There would also be those pesky nuclear arms suddenly uncontrolled by any governmental entity.
So that leaves trying to negotiate a peaceful path for the DPRK (Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea - aka North Korea) to at long last join the rest of the world with normalized relations. Then perhaps the DPRK can follow a path similar to China - gradually giving it's people freedoms, gradually becoming more socialist, gradually becoming a viable economy, gradually realizing that the best path for everybody is open boarders with intertwined economies.
Frankly, I'm very skeptical that in the long term, further military conflict or the hard collapse of the DPRK economy and ensuing refugee issue can be avoided. The Kim factor just seems too unstable and too committed to walking that fine line of mock aggression to extort what they want from the rest of the world. Sooner or later I would bet that they either stray to far over the line or they push against the line and don't get what they need in time to keep their internal house of cards standing.
But in the mean time all the posturing I would expect will remain just that. Although it would certainly make me happier if by some miracle everybody could ratchet it down just a tad.
