I had an interesting teaching moment last week. Over a span of three days I had maybe a dozen or so students ask about what is going on in Korea. That may not seem like a lot since I have just over 200 students contacts a day, but in my business a dozen out of 200 is fantastic! So Monday was current events day and I led a lesson on why Korea is split, the history of the North and South, and current military capabilities. Students were interested and relieved that they were not going to get nuked. They laughed at the Dennis Rodman/Kim Jong Un cartoons, and in the process wrote a bit on what they thought America's policy should be regarding North Korea. The whole thing got me thinking about the current situation.
It's History, Man! You can not understand What is going on unless you understand why Korea is split. Although a distinct nation and people for thousands of years, after World War Two, Korea fell prey to Cold War rivalry. With Japan on the brink of surrender, the Soviet Union flooded troops into the Korean Peninsula. The US followed their lead, so when the shooting stopped Korea was being occupied by two different nations. Like Europe and Germany after the war, Korea became split between a communist North and republic South. Unwittingly, Korea had become a pawn in the Cold War chess match. After Mao's successful communist revolution in China (1949), North Korea began planning the invasion of South Korea. With containment's failure as a policy in the case of China, US leaders questioned whether communism could be contained in Asia. These subtle signals along with urging from the Soviet Union led to the 1950 invasion. Although unsuccessful in unifying the peninsula under a communist regime, Korea remained split and technically still in a state of war. The two sides had agreed to stop fighting but a treaty ending the Korean War was never signed, which has unfortunately left a void in the region that is yet to be filled.
Same Old Thing? North Korea has threatened invasion, bombing, shelling, and any other type of aggression since the fighting stopped in 1953. They have even fired across the border a few times, attacked South Korean ships, and sent commandos across the border. None of it has ever gone very far and the rhetoric is generally just that...words. North Korea is kind of like a chihuahua--lots of noise but very little in the way of bite. Is this time different though? The North does have nuclear weapons and some long ranged missiles. Whether their technology will work could be questioned but who would want to risk it. And then there is Kim Jong Un. Is he really in control? Is his aunt and uncle pulling his strings? Is he simply a nut (ie. hangin' with Dennis Rodman)? Is he just young and inexperienced? Does he has something to prove?
Policy? Recently the Obama administration has announced a policy of "proportionality" in regards to Kim Jong Un's recent threats and military movements. Nothing new about the policy as that's what policy has largely been for sixty years, but I am wondering if something new is needed now. Maybe proportionality x2. If North Korea shells a South Korean base then we (US and South Korea) destroy two of theirs. If North Korea sinks a ship, then we sink two. The way I see it, by turning up the heat, North Korea will have to back down or be wiped out and it might expose the chinks in the armor and encourage the people of North Korea (who suffer greatly under the Kim regime) to rebel. Otherwise it will be business as usual for maybe another sixty years. A wisely thought out policy now might payback big in terms of a more stable Korea.
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