Korea has recently been experiencing instability due to an extreme divide in national opinion. Despite the fact that North Korea’s nuclear missiles are pointed directly at South Koreans’ hearts, they appear unusually calm. There is nothing close to fervent discussion on military readiness against the potential attack. Rather, anti-war factions increasingly emphasize the devastation of war and even ruthlessly criticize the US, which has assisted South Korea greatly in the field of security.

A good example is a recent article in the New York Times on Oct. 7 titled “While the US talks of war, South Korea Shudders. There is no war scenario that ends in victory” by South Korean writer Han Kang. Her article stated that the 1950-1953 Korean War was a proxy of the great powers and that we must stop a second proxy war, which may be spurred by President Donald Trump’s blunt war-related remarks.

While I agree with her assertion that no one living on the Korean Peninsula should ever have to suffer the ravages of war once again, I am deeply perturbed by her ignorance regarding the Korean War and the current security crisis.

It seems to me that the author was either poorly educated on this subject in school, or while pursuing to be a novelist, she was influenced by the pro-North Korean sentiment that is currently on the rise in South Korea.

The Korean War broke out on June 25, 1950, at 4 a.m., on the orders of North Korean dictator Kim Il-sung. Without any declaration of war, the North Korean military invaded South Korea through the 38th parallel that divided the Korean Peninsula.

In accordance with the resolution of the UN Security Council to protect freedom and peace on the Korean Peninsula, 16 countries including the US provided military forces, five countries gave medical support, 32 countries provided material support, and seven countries participated in postwar recovery. We Koreans will never forget it and will always be thankful to the United Nations and all 60 participant countries for this.

The origins of the Korean War have been studied by a number of scholars at home and abroad. North Korea and communist countries have been strengthening the false propaganda that the Korean War was a counterattack against a South Korean invasion.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia under President Boris Yeltsin declassified secret documents on the Korean War in 1992. From autumn 1993, the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars translated these declassified documents into English and started to publish them under the name of the Cold War International History Project. These documents revealed that North Korea invaded South Korea under the orders of Joseph Stalin, Soviet military advisers’ military operation plan, and with the military support of the Chinese communist army.

Therefore the Korean War is definitely neither a proxy war between the great powers nor a civil war as President Moon Jae-in said in his UN General Assembly speech last September. Instead, it was a North Korean invasion with Soviets’ lead and communist Chinese military assistance.

North Korea previously stated that it had neither the will nor the ability to develop nuclear bombs. Yet while North Korea was consecutively negotiating from the 1990s with South Korea, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the US and five countries at the six-party talks, it continued to develop nuclear and missile capabilities, which now threaten not only Seoul but also Washington.

From Oct. 9, 2006 to Sept. 3 this year, North Korea tested nuclear bombs six times, and from April 9, 1984 to Sept. 15 this year, it tested missiles more than 100 times.

In her New York Times article, Han Kang made no mention of North Korea’s provocative acts in engendering the precarious security situation on the Korean Peninsula, nor did she place any responsibility on North Korea for its bellicose actions. She seems to be imagining that we can overcome the current dangerous situation through quiet candlelight vigils and proposing dialogue with North Korea.

On. Oct. 19, 2017, CIA Director Mike Pompeo said North Korea could be months away from perfecting the ability to strike the US with nuclear weapons. We must consider different options to deter the threat of North Korean weapons of mass destruction, according to Hans Morgenthau’s lesson. In his book “Politics Among Nations” (1973), Morgenthau said “if the threatened nation has no nuclear means of retaliation, it will either suffer total destruction or surrender unconditionally.”

Should we carry candles, sing for peace and beg North Korea for dialogue until the moment North Korean nuclear bombs drop on the heartlands of both South Korea and the US? We need dialogue with North Korea to seek the best policy to solve the nuclear issue, but at the moment we should prepare to deter increasing North Korean military provocations.

Based on the Republic of Korea-US alliance, the South Korean military should be equipped with defense capabilities and should be ready with mental fortitude. South Korea must unite its citizens and strengthen its capacity to both defend itself and to counterattack in case of any North Korean adventurism. At the same time, South Korea should discuss with the US the implementation of more detailed and extended military deterrence against North Korea, including the reintroduction of tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea.

President Donald Trump’s visit to South Korea from Nov. 7-8 will take the form of a state visit, marking the first by a US state head since 1992. Koreans are welcoming him and looking forward to having a positive outcome to enhance the alliance between the two countries and joint efforts to end the North Korean nuclear issue from the summit conference with President Moon Jae-in.


By Song Jong-hwan

Song Jong-hwan, a former South Korean ambassador to Pakistan, is chair professor at the department of international relations at Kyungnam University. – Ed.