Can South Korea Achieve Peace in a Chaotic World?

By Ji-Yeon Yuh | July 1, 2025 | Originally published in The National Interest

Image Credit: Shutterstock/Yeongsik Im.

Lee Jae-myung faces an emboldened, nuclear North Korea and an uncooperative US; to succeed, Seoul must shift from denuclearization demands toward arms control and independent, multilateral diplomacy.

Editor’s Note: This article is part of the symposium “President Lee and North Korea.” The full symposium can be found here.

The US strike on Iran is driving North Korea deeper into its renewed alliances with Russia and China, strengthening its conviction that nuclear weapons are a necessity for its self-defense, and decreasing the already faint possibilities for peace in northeast Asia. In this hostile milieu, can Lee Jae-myung’s South Korea stake out its path for peace in the region? 

South Korea’s Foreign Policy Has Been Defined By the United States

Much depends on his administration’s grasp of the new realities and willingness to move independently of the United States. North Korea is no longer an isolated nation-state seeking Western friends by dangling the prospect of its denuclearization, even as it sought nuclear weapons for self-defense. 

That version of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) disappeared after the disastrous 2019 Hanoi Summit. Instead, the DPRK is the newest nuclear power on the globe and has been strikingly bold in its foreign policy actions. In January 2024, the DPRK loudly renounced reunification as a goal, destroying the Reunification Arch to demonstrate its resolve, and named South Korea an enemy state. Perhaps most alarmingly, it sent troops into battle for the first time since 1953, aiding Russia in its war against Ukraine and signalling a newfound aggressiveness.  

This is essentially the poisoned fruit of failed US policies since 1945, with a war that never officially ended and a US nuclear umbrella over South Korea since 1958. 

Yet, North Korea also spent some three decades using its nuclear weapons development program as bait. But again and again, the door would open and then shut; it opened the widest with the 1994 Agreed Framework, closed under Bush in 2002, and slammed shut in 2019 when the US delegation stalked out of the Hanoi summit. 

Since then, the DPRK has shown little interest in talking with the United States. Soon after, South Korea chose the anti-communist rightwinger Yoon Seok-yeol as its president and the US announced its strengthened US-Japan-ROK military solidarity, the DPRK renounced reunification and named the ROK its enemy. In doing so, it was mirroring the stance of the US and the ROK’s stance toward North Korea from its inception in 1948. 

President Lee Starts a New Age of Inter-Korean Relations

The recently elected Lee Jae-myung is now sending friendly signals to the north and appointing a familiar old guard committed to engagement. But with the US embroiled in a new conflict with Iran, can the ROK turn around its volatile relationship with the North? 

Unfortunately, neither the US nor the ROK seems ready to do what is necessary for peace with the DPRK. The recent US strike on Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities is merely the latest demonstration, as far as the north is concerned, that the US, and by extension, South Korea, cannot be trusted. The chances are slim that Lee Jae-myung’s engagement approach can succeed without US cooperation. 

The North Korea policy that seems to be coalescing for South Korea is a return to the playbooks of previous progressive administrations, offering economic engagement, liaison offices, canceling war games, loosening sanctions, and the like, likely paired with the United States’ equally old demands for denuclearization. That approach would ignore the new reality. 

Additionally, Kim Jong-un has to be coaxed into rejoining the negotiating table. Back-channel overtures have failed, and the most recent one, where Trump reportedly sent a letter to Kim via the DPRK delegation at the UN, has yet to bear any fruit. Perhaps that letter included an apology for the epic smackdown that Trump delivered to Kim by walking out of the Hanoi summit. Kim likely requires guarantees that nothing similar will happen again before he considers talking to the US. 

The new Lee administration must be prepared to move forward independently to succeed in the present circumstances, given the erratic Trump administration in the US, which is unlikely to offer much assistance. This means understanding that the time for an arms control approach, not a denuclearization approach, has arrived. It means making overtures to North Korea independently and adopting a multilateral foreign policy that strengthens relationships with key nations, such as China. 

What Will President Lee Do to Improve Relations with North Korea?

Lee Jae-myung’s decision to stop broadcasts at the DMZ was precisely the kind of independent move that these times demand, and it garnered a swift response: North Korea also dropped its propaganda broadcasts, and the US registered its displeasure at its junior ally’s lack of prior consultation. Lee continued the momentum by naming pro-engagement figures such as Lee Jong-seok as espionage chief and Wi Sung-lac as national security advisor. 

It also signaled a shift to multilateralism by naming former UN envoy Cho Hyun as foreign minister. Will Lee Jae-myung’s ROK continue to implement bold ideas on its own, even if they are small steps like cancelling propaganda broadcasts, and build trust with the DPRK? Or will it succumb to US pressures? 

If history is any guide, US pressures are likely to win out. However, South Korean leaders, such as Kim Dae-jung, made bold moves with the Sunshine Policy, which steered the two Koreas toward cooperation. It can happen again with clear-eyed leadership focused on peace. 

With the US at war in the Middle East, North Korean troops in Ukraine, and numerous other war zones across the globe, the need for peace in northeast Asia is greater now than ever before. 

Ji-Yeon Yuh teaches Asian diasporas, war and empire, and Asian American history at Northwestern University. Her book Beyond the Shadow of Camptown: Korean Military Brides in America was the first substantive work to examine the consequences of US militarism for Korean migration and diaspora. Her opinion pieces and interviews on the legacies of the ongoing Korean War have appeared in numerous publications and broadcasts. She currently serves as the board chair for Women Cross DMZ.