UPDATE: Another blogger from Canada has weighed in on how war can save lives, using game theory and the Prisoner's Dilemma to bolster their argument. Well worth a read, whichever side of the argument you agree with.
Author's note: I get the feeling I'm going to get a lot of comments on this one. I'm not out to be controversial just to be controversial, and I'll freely admit to being out of my field of expertise. I also dislike bringing up the topic with the holidays approaching. With that said, I have an opinion and this is my platform - so here goes nothing.
The recent Hankyoreh article entitled "Why War Cannot Be the Answer" by former Unification Minister Lee Jong Seok is a reminder of how much South Korea supposedly has to lose. After mentioning how "devastated" North Korea has become, Lee asks, "how much more serious a situation South Korea would face, developed as it is in all directions, were a single North Korean shell to fall in Gyeonggi Province?"
There would almost certainly be loss of property, and possibly loss of life depending on where in Gyeonggi-do it hits. Remember that while Gyeonggi-do has over 10,000,000 million people living in an area smaller than the size of Connecticut, there's a surprisingly large amount of undeveloped land and mountains. Assume North Korea's targeting system is accurate, and that fear does become more real.
But does that fear necessarily damage or paralyze the economy? In the days following the Yeonpyeong-do bombing, the KOSPI did not - repeat, not - take a beating:
Source: screenshot from Bloomberg.com showing 3 month data of the KOSPI.
Ups and downs just like any other stock market. Even though the attacks happened after the stock market day closed, there was no big dropoff the next day. Were there some genuine concern of North Korea in the South Korean financial world, there would almost certainly be some sign found here. Instead, the KOSPI is back above 2,000 - perhaps the Dow Jones equivalent of the 10,000 milestone - and remains there even now.
Another quote from the Hankyreh article:
Furthermore, there is no reason to believe a North Korean collapse would be orderly or kept within its borders. At best, South Korea and China would struggle to keep millions or tens of millions of people from attempting to emigrate. At worst, someone bent on using those nuclear missiles might use the government's collapse as an opportunity to take control of - or even fire - the missiles in question. It may not take a war to collapse a nation supposedly collapsing on its own, but a swift strike on the people that hold the power would at least be an element in our control.
Speaking of nuclear missiles, there seems no one in charge that understands one simple thing: North Korea will never give up that nuclear technology. I picture in my head a standoff, where two people are holding a gun at each other's heads:
Source
All things being equal, giving something up to the other guy or putting your gun down puts you at a disadvantage. And what a disadvantage North Korea would have. With exception of a couple outliers, the rest of the world has shown it can effectively cut off North Korea from the outside world. What few outside products that make it in have to be smuggled in, under penalty of a prison camp or death.
There will not be a peaceful unification between North and South Korea. I'd like to be proven wrong, but the odds are stacked against that happening for more reasons than I can elaborate.
One final quote from the article:
This current Korean economy was created through the hard work and never-give-up attitude of multiple generations. Those traits certainly haven't gone anywhere, have they? If South Koreans are once again called to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, could they not recover in much the same way New Yorkers did in the days following 9/11? They might have to pull themselves away from Starcraft and stop taking pictures of their mocha lattes.
Shock and horror!
Kids might have to cut back from going to four different private schools to three because one of the buildings was damaged. Perhaps over-elaborate productions of big-budget, borderline-anorexic, barely dressed teenagers singing what they call music might have to stop for awhile. If that is the price of peace on the Korean peninsula, I welcome it.
Finally, the author quotes from the Art of War, the timeless classic by Sun Tzu. I read it in college - twice, one out of personal interest and once for class - and have a copy sitting on my bookshelf. Like the Bible and Koran, the book has an unfortunate tendency to be used in whatever way a write would like (as I am about to do myself, admittedly). I refer to an online version found on MIT's website:
Taking care of the North Korea problem ensures several things: long-term peace / stability in the East Asian area, increased foreign direct investment, and any number of benefits gained from adding land mass to Dae Han Min Guk.
Easy to do? No. Cheap? Heck no. Likely to be a long-term process that takes years to settle down? Yes. Let's not get any misconceptions about the aftermath, but we'd have to deal with that anyway. Let's do it on our timetable, not North Korea's.
© Chris Backe - 2010
Author's note: I get the feeling I'm going to get a lot of comments on this one. I'm not out to be controversial just to be controversial, and I'll freely admit to being out of my field of expertise. I also dislike bringing up the topic with the holidays approaching. With that said, I have an opinion and this is my platform - so here goes nothing.
The recent Hankyoreh article entitled "Why War Cannot Be the Answer" by former Unification Minister Lee Jong Seok is a reminder of how much South Korea supposedly has to lose. After mentioning how "devastated" North Korea has become, Lee asks, "how much more serious a situation South Korea would face, developed as it is in all directions, were a single North Korean shell to fall in Gyeonggi Province?"
There would almost certainly be loss of property, and possibly loss of life depending on where in Gyeonggi-do it hits. Remember that while Gyeonggi-do has over 10,000,000 million people living in an area smaller than the size of Connecticut, there's a surprisingly large amount of undeveloped land and mountains. Assume North Korea's targeting system is accurate, and that fear does become more real.
But does that fear necessarily damage or paralyze the economy? In the days following the Yeonpyeong-do bombing, the KOSPI did not - repeat, not - take a beating:
Source: screenshot from Bloomberg.com showing 3 month data of the KOSPI.
Ups and downs just like any other stock market. Even though the attacks happened after the stock market day closed, there was no big dropoff the next day. Were there some genuine concern of North Korea in the South Korean financial world, there would almost certainly be some sign found here. Instead, the KOSPI is back above 2,000 - perhaps the Dow Jones equivalent of the 10,000 milestone - and remains there even now.
Another quote from the Hankyreh article:
We often see reports about how key figures in the Lee administration believe there is a strong chance the North Korean regime will soon collapse due to its vulnerability. These predictions have generated a lot of controversy. But if the administration's diagnosis is correct, it makes even less sense that it would be willing to opt for war against a system that is soon to fail, when war means that South Korea could well be destroyed along with it.The South Korean government has been predicting the collapse of the North Korean government for decades. Each and every time, that prediction has been proved wrong. Unless there is some reason to believe that this prediction is somehow different, I find little reason to believe in the government that cries "Collapse!", just as people stop listening to the boy that cried wolf. Perhaps this is the first prediction based on actual evidence - if so, let's see it.
Furthermore, there is no reason to believe a North Korean collapse would be orderly or kept within its borders. At best, South Korea and China would struggle to keep millions or tens of millions of people from attempting to emigrate. At worst, someone bent on using those nuclear missiles might use the government's collapse as an opportunity to take control of - or even fire - the missiles in question. It may not take a war to collapse a nation supposedly collapsing on its own, but a swift strike on the people that hold the power would at least be an element in our control.
Speaking of nuclear missiles, there seems no one in charge that understands one simple thing: North Korea will never give up that nuclear technology. I picture in my head a standoff, where two people are holding a gun at each other's heads:
Source
All things being equal, giving something up to the other guy or putting your gun down puts you at a disadvantage. And what a disadvantage North Korea would have. With exception of a couple outliers, the rest of the world has shown it can effectively cut off North Korea from the outside world. What few outside products that make it in have to be smuggled in, under penalty of a prison camp or death.
There will not be a peaceful unification between North and South Korea. I'd like to be proven wrong, but the odds are stacked against that happening for more reasons than I can elaborate.
One final quote from the article:
The reason we are showing restraint is because of the disaster a war would bring. It would instantaneously bring down the economy we have worked so hard to build since the armistice and lead the Korean people once again onto the road to ruin. This is why the fuse must not be lit recklessly.On this point, I'll partially agree - war might bring a disaster. I could break out any number of sayings to serve as faux proverbs; 'you can't make an omelet without breaking an egg' comes to mind immediately. It's going to end badly any way you slice it, so why not end it in a manner that's more advantageous to you in the long-term?
This current Korean economy was created through the hard work and never-give-up attitude of multiple generations. Those traits certainly haven't gone anywhere, have they? If South Koreans are once again called to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, could they not recover in much the same way New Yorkers did in the days following 9/11? They might have to pull themselves away from Starcraft and stop taking pictures of their mocha lattes.
Shock and horror!
Kids might have to cut back from going to four different private schools to three because one of the buildings was damaged. Perhaps over-elaborate productions of big-budget, borderline-anorexic, barely dressed teenagers singing what they call music might have to stop for awhile. If that is the price of peace on the Korean peninsula, I welcome it.
Finally, the author quotes from the Art of War, the timeless classic by Sun Tzu. I read it in college - twice, one out of personal interest and once for class - and have a copy sitting on my bookshelf. Like the Bible and Koran, the book has an unfortunate tendency to be used in whatever way a write would like (as I am about to do myself, admittedly). I refer to an online version found on MIT's website:
Section 2, 6: There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.Having been at war (even if at a technical level) for 60+ years has shown little benefit to Korea's development; it has hurt the long-term investment opportunities coming from overseas.
Section 8, 11: The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy's not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable.If South Korea's holding back because it's not ready, God help us all. The response from Yeonpyeong-do raises enough questions to justify a more extensive audit.
Section 9, 26. Peace proposals unaccompanied by a sworn covenant indicate a plot.Two words: Wolf Blitzer. Let the history books serve as record of peace proposals offered - from either side - and plots abound.
Taking care of the North Korea problem ensures several things: long-term peace / stability in the East Asian area, increased foreign direct investment, and any number of benefits gained from adding land mass to Dae Han Min Guk.
Easy to do? No. Cheap? Heck no. Likely to be a long-term process that takes years to settle down? Yes. Let's not get any misconceptions about the aftermath, but we'd have to deal with that anyway. Let's do it on our timetable, not North Korea's.
© Chris Backe - 2010This post was originally published on my blog,Chris in South Korea. If you are reading this on another website and there is no linkback or credit given, you are reading an UNAUTHORIZED FEED.
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