[Column] The ’Korean Peninsula-Northeast Asian Era’ and independent defense

Kim Ji-seok, Chief Editorial Writer for The Hankyoreh

"I’d like to explain ’independent national defense’ with a comparison. Let’s say my house catches fire. Shouldn’t the first thing I do is to get everyone in the family to try and put it out? While we’re busy doing something about it, the neighbors are going to come and fetch water. Then the firemen are going to come."

The words of president Roh Moo-hyun, speaking about reclaiming wartime command over Korean forces?

Instead, that’s president Park Chung-hee, quoted in "Spit on My Grave," by Cho Gap-je, at that time a writer of the Monthly Chosun.

This next quote comes from a Chosun Ilbo editorial, dated December 1, 1994.

The fact that Korea has received peacetime command authority "is historically significant in that it means we have laid the foundation for independent defense for our military...The ultimate responsibility for national security clearly lies with the country that is to be defended, so we have to be able to carry out operational command. This being the case, the next order of business should be to reclaim wartime operational command at the soonest date possible. We cannot say we are fully responsible for our own security, having only received peacetime command authority."

The elements that are today opposed to Korea having wartime operational command are attacking those who want it using terms like "reclaim," "independent defense," "full responsibility for security," just as in the above editorial from the conservative-geared Chosun Ilbo. The same newspaper is currently at the forefront of opposing the government’s idea of seeking wartime command. At the time it wrote what you see above it was expected that Korea would have wartime operational command 15 to 18 years later, sometime between 2009 and 2012. You wonder what it meant by "at the soonest date possible."

Maybe these elements are opposing the idea because while Korea needs "independent defense" they don’t trust Roh’s administration. It’s the same thinking that says that when I have an affair, it’s romance, but when you have an affair, it’s infidelity. That is why there are more than a few people who suspect the issue is just being used as political material by people who want to do in the president. The Grand National Party (GNP) says that negotiations about winning back wartime command should be done "quietly, with ample discussion with the U.S.," but is not the GNP making a lot of noise about the issue, complicating something that was going relatively quietly and smoothly?

Why have an independent defense? To be responsible for our own destiny. We, of course, need to consider our unique relationship with the U.S. The question is what kind of military independence we should have and in what situation, and how this independence is to be pursued.

Park Chung-hee tried to give Korea an independent defense and failed. He failed because his proposal was a style of independent defense that intensified Cold War conflict by trying to overwhelm the North by developing nuclear weapons. It also failed because Park’s drive intensified the structure of oppression that was part of his undemocratic government.

Throughout the eighties, calls for military independence disappeared, in large part because Korea’s governments during that period lacked legitimacy. Now, Northeast Asia is the most dynamic region on the planet. Collectively, gross domestic product (GDP) accounts for more than 20 percent of the collective global GDP. The Korean peninsula is one of the main points of prosperity within Northeast Asia. It is the beginning of the "Korean Peninsula-Northeast Asian Era."

The nations of Northeast Asia compete against each other and cooperate with each other. North Korea is no exception. Competition between the political systems of North and South Korea is over. What matters now is the question of whether North Korea can achieve a soft landing in terms of reform and openness, without making its neighbors nervous. Unlike in the past, the demand now is for independent defense that concentrates on maintaining peace and joint prosperity. It is abnormal for South Korea to be spending more on defense than the North’s GNP.

The U.S.-Korea alliance is a sustainable "alliance of values." However, the American push to strengthen its hegemonic hold on a global scale and the political and military interests of a South Korea that seeks to establish a lasting peace in Northeast Asia do not fit well together. It is a Cold War-era habit to see the U.S. and Korea as totally one and the same. A future cannot be forged without moving away from the comforts of the past.