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[Originally published in Foreign Policy in Focus, March 8, 2013] As women around the world gather to celebrate International Women’s Day, a light needs to be shone upon the Korean peninsula where a tinderbox situation is about to erupt into a full-blown military conflict. In response to the U.S.-led UN Security Council sanctions against North Korea for testing its third nuclear weapon last month, the DPRK has threatened to both nullify the 1953 armistice agreement that halted the Korean War and preemptively strike the United States. The North Korean foreign ministry said in a statement: “Since the United States is about to ignite a nuclear war, we will be exercising our right to preemptive nuclear attack against the headquarters of the aggressor in order to protect our supreme interest.” While escalations of tension are nothing new, what they are revealing is that a major game changer is needed to break the silent stalemate between the United States and North Korea. And it’s going to take more than Dennis Rodman’s trip to North Korea. It will require the United States to take greater responsibility and leadership to end the Korean War, as well as a feminist, anti-militarist approach to achieve peace and justice on the Korean peninsula. Why the U.S. Must Take Responsibility to End the Korean War In 1948, after the close of the Second World War, the United States, with a nod of agreement from the Soviet Union, divided the Korean peninsula. During the war, the United States led the United Nations Command in waging a brutal scorched earth air bombing campaign across the Korean peninsula, particularly in the north, where U.S. bombs leveled 80 percent of northern cities and destroyed agricultural dams—actions considered war crimes under the Fourth Geneva Convention ratified that year. The Korean War was incredibly vicious. More bombs were dropped in Korea than on all of Europe during World War II, and U.S. President Harry Truman threatened to drop another atomic bomb. And it was during the Korean War that napalm was first used against civilians. Within three months of the war’s outset, 57,000 Korean children were missing and half a million homes were damaged or destroyed. One year into the war, U.S. Major General Emmett O’Donnell Jr. testified before the Senate, “I would say that the entire, almost the entire Korean Peninsula is just a terrible mess. Everything is destroyed. There is nothing standing worthy of the name…There were no more targets in Korea.” It wasn’t until some 4 million people had been killed that the Korean War came to an unresolved end on July 27, 1953 with a temporary armistice signed by the United States, North Korea, and China. South Korea was not a signatory because it had ceded military power to General Douglas MacArthur. A permanent peace agreement has never materialized, which means the war is technically still on. Sixty years later, the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) remains the world’s most heavily militarized border, with South Korean, North Korean, and U.S. troops poised for war amid over 1.2 million landmines. We are facing, once again, perilous times as tensions escalate in the Asia-Pacific. Most western governments and the mainstream media point to North Korea’s third nuclear test and perceived belligerence as the cause of the escalation when in fact there are two major initiatives fueling this militarized response. First is the so-called “pivot.” In 2011, the Obama administration announced a plan to transfer significant military resources to Asia and the Pacific, including expanding bases, surveillance, and equipment. The Pentagon has committed to deploying 60 percent of its air and naval forces to the region, including sending U.S. troops to Vietnam, the Philippines, and Australia. Without a doubt, the “pivot” is exacerbating tensions in a region that has still not resolved conflicts from the last century. Second are the perennial U.S-ROK joint military exercises against North Korea. North Korea justifiably views these war games as acts of provocation. The annual U.S.-ROK “Key Resolve/Foal Eagle” war games, usually staged in March, and “Ulchi Freedom Guardian” in August typically last for months and involve tens of thousands of U.S. troops and hundreds of thousands of South Korean troops. In the exercises, U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, and Space Command forces simulate overthrowing North Korea’s leadership, occupying Pyongyang, and reunifying the peninsula under U.S. and South Korean control. When I think about the impact of all this militarization, I think about the elderly rice farmers in Pyongtaek who used their bodies to defend their community from being bulldozed to accommodate the expansion of a U.S. military base. I think about the tangerine farmers and women sea divers of Gangjeong village on Jeju island struggling day and night to stop the construction of a U.S.-backed Korean naval base. This is what the militarization of the Korean peninsula looks like, and the only road to peace runs through Washington. Why Women’s Leadership is Crucial Women’s organizing to end the Korean War is strategic for three key reasons. First, the war has a disproportionate impact on the lives of women. As feminists, we know that nationalism, patriarchy, and militarism intersect. The militarization of the peninsula naturally leads to greater masculinization of society, which increases violence against women, including sexual violence by U.S. servicemen and the reallocation of resources from social welfare towards the military. But the partition also has very real consequences for North Korean women, especially those seeking a better life outside of North Korea. According to estimates by aid workers, 80 to 90 percent of female refugees from North Korea are trafficking victims. At a women’s circle in South Korea, one 19-year-old escapee talked of being raped four times during her journey—once by the Korean Chinese man who promised to find her work in China, a second time by the Chinese man who hid her from the authorities, a third time by the South Korean coyote who brought her into the country, and a fourth time by the South Korean CIA. This she had to endure so she could survive. Second, given our relationships with our families, children, and community, women have a reality check that is seldom there for men. Not only can women can bring into greater focus the experience of women and girls in militarized societies and armed conflict, we can provide crucial insights into the day-to-day consequences of the ongoing war on peoples’ lives. Finally, the deadlocked situation calls for game changers. As a group of people outside the structures of power, we have to use our ingenuity to go beyond conventional paths outlined and dominated by patriarchal institutions. Women are not cowed by limited notions of solutions; we use our imagination and creativity to break through repressive structures. Lights on the Water Once, in the fall of 2009, I woke up in the middle of the night. Instead of continuing to toss and turn, I decided to switch on my computer. On the homepage of the New York Times read the headline, “North Korea Opens Dam Flow, Sweeping Away 6 in the South.” North Korea had lifted the floodgates of a dam on the Imjin River, sending a tidal wave south and killing six South Koreans, including an 8-year-old boy. The water level had doubled, which meant North Korea’s farms could flood and wipe out the season’s harvest. To avert this perilous situation, North Korea allegedly released the water without any advance notice. This is so ridiculous, I thought to myself. Why can’t these two countries — that speak the same language, eat the same food, and share over two millennia of history — just communicate? Why couldn’t Kim Jong Il just have picked up the phone and given South Korean leader Lee Myung-bak a heads up? After being thoroughly depressed about the situation of the two Koreas, I finally fell back to sleep. And then I had the most vivid dream, which I’ve held onto as hope for the future of a united Korea. In my dream, I was wading in a river alongside other Koreans. It was before the break of dawn and we were anxiously waiting for Koreans from the north. And just over the crest of the horizon, a light glowed. It was a group of people holding candles wading down the river. As we met in the river, there was an overabundance of joy and intense embrace. But I kept going forward up the river, bypassing this emotional scene to find the source. I came upon a ceremony of women huddled around a huge kettle stirring thick black liquid and pouring ladles of it into little pails carried by children. It was at that moment when I awoke and realized, aha, it will take Korean women on the peninsula and throughout the Diaspora to bring about peace and reunification for Korea. Now I have no idea what was in that black liquid, but what I do know is that peace and reunification on the Korean peninsula must be advocated without supporting any particular nation-state. We don’t want the reunification of two highly patriarchal, militaristic societies. Our immediate task is to talk about the unfinished war’s militarization of the Korean peninsula and the consequent violence against women, children, and the future. We need to confront head-on the military buildup that is destroying livelihoods, communities, and the natural world. So what can we do? We are powerless in the face of the military industrial complex, and we are cynical in the face of over 60 years of unfinished war. I don’t have the solutions, but I do have some dreams. Imagine if people severed the barbed wires along the DMZ and transformed it into an ecological park. Imagine if the elderly could board a bus that would take them to visit their families in cities in the north, like Kaesong, Nampo, or Pyongyang. Imagine if the resources allocated to buying drones or to launch a satellite were instead spent on education, childcare, or support for single mothers. Imagine if North Korean farmers could access all the materials they needed to yield abundant harvests. Central to all of this is ending the Korean War, with the United States signing a peace treaty with North Korea. But it will take more than signing a document to end over half a century of enmity and mistrust—it will take a new approach to achieving security. This is why it will take women’s leadership, because women realize that genuine security means having health, education, and freedom to live without fear and want. From Ireland to Liberia, women have stood up to end violence and conflict. We can and must do the same for Korea. *Christine Ahn is the executive director of the Korea Policy Institute. This column was adapted from an address she gave to the UN Commission on the Status of Women on March 6, 2013. #ChristineAhn

Stop the threat of war on the Korean Peninsula and start a dialogue for peace! We women are deeply concerned about the crisis of war. Since North Korea’s rocket launch last December, a vicious circle of sanctions and armed protests has continued unabated. Particularly, South Korea and the US governments recently conducted the Key Resolve military exercise, which included a nuclear-powered carrier, and North Korea responded by claiming that it would rescind the armistice agreement and cancel the non-aggression pact between North and South Korea, and threatened a nuclear strike. This year is the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Korean War armistice treaty. A war poses a disaster to women, children and other living things. We already experienced a horrendous war among the same race. We remember the tears and deep sorrow from death, separation, hunger and sexual violence upon women. Therefore, North and South Korea’s desperate effort is needed to embrace the scars of war, reconcile and live together. However, we hardly hear any voices calling for peace from the North and South Korean governments. The current situation is the product of the hostile relationship of the US-North Korea, and the two Koreas as the Korean War never actually ended over the last 60 years and the armistice continued to exist. Their mutual hostility, hatred, and deeply-rooted fear have long lasted. As long as the armistice regime continues, military threat and confrontations, and fear will pervade. The fundamental solution to end such a vicious circle of violence and counter-violence should be pursued. We women urge the North and South Korean governments and the US government to make a bold political decision to prevent war and settle peace. We hope that conflicts on the Korean Peninsula will be resolved through dialogue, compromise and cooperation. We urge all concerned parties not to threat the other side through military superiority, nuclear deterrence, and military exercises and try to gain benefits, but to pursue peace by peaceful means by searching for mutual benefits through political negotiations, dialogue and reconciliations. We women as agent of peacemaking hope that this 60th anniversary of the Korean War armistice will be the first year of the singing of a peace treaty. We are also determined to promote inter-Korean exchanges and to work together with other women at home and abroad to make the Korean Peninsula peaceful so that our children will freely travel over the demilitarized zone (DMZ) to Europe. Therefore, we call upon the concerned parties as follows to prevent a war and make peace.: First, the North and South Korean governments should stop any action and military exercises which only increase war risks. Second, the two Korean governments should obey inter-Korean agreements and start a dialogue for reconciliation, cooperation and peaceful settlement. Third, the states of the six-party talks should resume the talks for the denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula. Fourth, South Korea, North Korea, United States of America, and China should start dialogues and negotiations for a permanent peace regime on the Korean Peninsula. *Women’s urgent Action for the prevention of war and making peace on the Korean Peninsula (Total 66 women’s organizations) Kyonggi Indenpendence Women’s Solidarity, Kyeongnam Women’s Association United, Kyeongnam Women’s Solidarity, Goyang Women’s Association, GwangJu Woman Center, GwangJu(Kyunggi) Women’s Association, GwangJu Women’s Association, Guro Women’s Association, Guri Women’s Association, Alliance for the Human Rights of Gijichon (US military bases in South Korea) Women, Namhae Women’s Association, Daegu-Kyungbuk Women’s Association United, Daegu Womensquare, Daegu Women’s Association, Daejeon Women’s Association United, Daejeon Women’s Association for Peace, Busan Women’s Association United, Busan Women’s Association, Bucheon Women’s Association for New Age, Bucheon Women’s Association, Bundang Women’s Association, Sacheon Women’s Association, Korean Catholic Women’s Community for a New World, Seoul Women’s Association, Seongnam Women’s Association, National Solidarity against Sexual Exploitation of Women, Suwon Women’s Association, Ansan Women’s Association, Anseong Women’s Association, Ynyang Sharing Women’s Association, Yangsan Women’s Association, Yangju Women’s Association, Women’s Human Rights Defenders, Korea Women’s Political Solidarity, Osan Women’s Association, Yongin Women’s Association, Uri Women’s Association, Ulsan Women’s Association, Eujungbu Dure Women’s Association, Icheon Women’s Association, Incheon Women’s Association, Korean Women Peasant Association, Korean Women’s Alliance, Jeju Women’s Human Rights Solidarity, National Campaign for Eradication of Crimes by U.S.Troops in Korea, Chongju Women’s Association for Protecting the Planet, Jinju Women’s Association, Jinhae Women’s Association, Changwon Women’s Association, Cheonan Women’s Association, Chuncheon Women’s Association, Unification Women’s Association, Commission on Women’s Affairs of The United Progressive Party, Paju Women’s Association, Pyeongtaek Women’s Association, Women Making Peace, Pohang Women’s Association, Hanam Women’s Association, Korea Church Women United, Korea Sexual Violence Relief Center, Korean Women’s Association United, Korean Womenlink, Korea Women’s Hot Line, YWCA of Korea, Haman Women’s Association, Hwaseong Women’s Association #PressRelease

This August 24-September 1, 2013, KPI Fellow Anders Riel Müller will be leading a delegation of international participants to South Korea on a Food Sovereignty Tour to discover Korean Food, Land and Democracy. KPI Board Member Christine Ahn sat down via Skype with Anders to learn a little more about the food and agriculture situation in South Korea, why South Korea’s food sovereignty movement led by farmers offers the world hope, and why this tour was created in the first place. South Korean Agriculture in Crisis Christine: Anders, you’ve now spent the past few years traveling around South Korea, connecting with the farmers and peasants movements and learning more about the food and agriculture situation. What have you learned? Anders: South Korea has been experiencing declining food self sufficiency for the past 20 years, and it has worsened over the past 5-6 years largely due to the new Free Trade Agreements with the United States and European Union. South Korea is also now in negotiations with Australia. These large agricultural exporting nations view South Korea as a major market for their agricultural products. Korean agriculture is in crisis. First of all 40 percent of the agricultural population is over 60 years old, and average farm household debt has been exceeding annual total income since 2003. They carry a very heavy debt load. And the South Korean government is very limited in terms of what it can do to help farmers because of the restrictions placed by the World Trade Organization (WTO). For example, because South Korea is a party to the WTO, it means that virtually all of the old support programs that once protected farmers have been dismantled. The government is trying new ways to support farmers by helping them convert to organic and by emphasizing the aesthetic value of the rural countryside. The agricultural sector is in decline. The amount of farmland in use is in decline, as is the land ownership among farmers. More farmers are now farming on rented land—in fact, 50% are now leasing land. Development policy has also changed so that more agricultural land has been opened up for urban and industrial development. In 2009, there were approximately 3.1 million farmers, 6.4% percent of the South Korean population. At least half of farmers are women. Men tend to work in the more economically profitable sectors of rice and beef, which are still relatively well protected, whereas women tend to grow more in vegetables, which is harder to turn a profit and more difficult to sustain. While the population of Korean farmers is on the decline, compared to other wealthy countries, it’s still relatively high. The average South Korean farm size is 1.4 hectares, which means they are very small farms, like the ones in Japan and Taiwan. Their output per hectare, however, is just as high as the farms in many European countries, such as France and Germany. Although these family farms are small scale, their cereal output per hectare is comparable to the output of mechanized farms in Western Europe. In fact, South Korean farms are on par with the United States in terms of productivity of cereal production, rice and beans with lower levels of mechanization and capitalization. South Korean farms are small scale, and while it is mostly mechanized, they don’t use large agricultural machinery, but rather rototillers, small planters and harvesters, machines that most Americans would consider garden machines. Unfortunately, Korean farmers still use a lot of pesticides and fertilizers, which were systematically applied under the U.S. food aid program known as PL 480. This U.S. policy began at the end of WWI but it wasn’t until after the Korean War that PL 480 really came into being in South Korea. The United States subsidized fertilizer and pesticides to increase the productivity of South Korean farms because of severe food shortages after the Korean War. By the 1970s, South Korea made a shift in agricultural policy, moving away from its dependence upon PL 480, which was being phased out. The government built new national industries in agricultural chemicals and fertilizer. The 1970s is known as the period of South Korea’s green revolution and also its “golden period” of Korean agriculture because food security was directly related to agriculture policy. The government sought to achieve domestic food security through domestic agriculture. It was also pursued for political and economic reasons, particularly to protect South Korea’s balance of trade. By producing food in Korea, the government could save money on imports. The program strengthened political support in rural areas for the military regime by extending power to state controlled village councils and agricultural cooperatives. In the two decades following the Korean War, South Korea lagged behind North Korea’s development. They closely followed the policies implemented in the North, including land reforms which were introduced in South Korea because the government feared an uprising among farmers who knew they had succeeded in North Korea. South Korea, however, never achieved food self sufficiency. By 1980, South Korea achieved self-sufficiency in rice, which was a big target for the government, but by the end of the modernization campaign, food self sufficiency rates was at 70%. From 1980 and onwards, food self sufficiency was on the decline because of trade liberalization and economic liberalization in general. Not only is South Korea forced to phase out protections for domestic agriculture, the country began facing changing diets. From the early 1980s, there was a sharp increase in beef consumption, with South Korean cows fed primarily with imported grains. This is a very interesting paradox—even though the domestic beef industry is protected—they are almost always entirely fed with imported grains. So when you eat Korean beef, it’s likely fed with American corn and soybean. It’s a very sensitive issue in Korea. In 2009, the food self sufficiency rate in South Korea was 50%, but if animal feed is included, food self sufficiency is only 26%. There has also been a sharp decline from the late 1970s in agricultural land—a 17% decline where approximately 400,000 hectares have been lost to urban and industrial development. Another source of crisis is South Korean farmers’ control over seed. Following the 1997 financial crisis, and subsequent IMF bailout and structural adjustment plans, four major seed companies in South Korea were bought by transnational corporations. These four transnational corporations now control almost two-thirds of the Korean seed market. Because seed prices have gone through the roof, the Korean Women Peasants Association (KWPA) started a native seed program to develop their own seeds so they did not have to pay a huge amount to U.S. seed companies. The Food Sovereignty Movement Christine: The situation sounds pretty grim in South Korea. Yet a food sovereignty movement seems to have taken root. Can you tell me a little about this movement? Anders: Korea’s food sovereignty movement emerged from the anti-WTO movement of the late 1990s and early 2000s. By 2007, however, the KWPA and Korean Peasants League (KPL), sought an alternative to protesting the government’s domestic policies and international policies. They began setting up alternatives and introducing food sovereignty as a policy. The KWPA and KPL and several consumer-producer cooperatives are promoting food sovereignty as national policy. Food sovereignty operates on two levels. It operates at the grassroots level where farmers set up cooperatives and develop local food systems by making direct connections to consumers in cities. It also operates at the political level where farmers are pushing at the national, provincial and city levels. They have succeeded at the provincial level, but have been virtually ignored at the national level by the ministry of agriculture. This grassroots food movement is interesting because it is the farmers who are driving the movement, not consumers. It’s what makes the Korean food movement distinct from many U.S. or European food movements and so interesting. At the provincial level, they have received support for establishing cooperatives. Provincial governments, especially regions with large agricultural sectors, have been supportive. Pro-farmer policies have been implemented, such as school lunch programs where cities provide lunches for schools using local produce. At the national level, the KWPA “Our Sisters Garden initiative” got funding through the Korea Social Enterprise Agency, not the Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. Why a Food Sovereignty Tour? Christine: Why did you and Food First decide to organize a Food Sovereignty Tour in South Korea? Anders: With the success of Gangnam Style and attention on Korea as this hyper modern and urban regional center, I feel there must be tours that show a different part of Korea than what people see in Seoul. There is also a big push from the Korean government to globalize Korean food. Both of these, however, don’t represent that other Korea side that also exists. The global campaign of Korean food doesn’t often show where the food is being produced—the food just becomes consumption based. I want to show where the food is produced in Korea, and also show that these farmers are an entrepreneurial group of people who are not just locked in tradition and old- fashioned lifestyles. They are very proactive in building new food movements, developing new food products, introducing sustainable agriculture techniques. Life is rural Korea is very positive and so inspiring that we must share what is happening with the rest of the world. Those traveling on the food sovereignty tour will get to see how farmers are organizing, developing new products, and how they are combining modern with traditional food. Furthermore, tour delegates will also see the historic role of farmers in Korea, the critical roles they played in the struggle for democracy and in resistance during the Japanese occupation. We never hear or learn about farmers, even though they have played such a key role. We will visit historic sites, such as where the legendary Tonghak rebellion emerged. We will visit sites that have been important in Korean peasant history, and meet farmers, see what they are growing, how they produce it, and how small scale agriculture is a viable form of agriculture—even today. It’s not that Korean agriculture got stuck and didn’t develop into large scale agriculture. These farmers chose small scale agriculture to protect their tradition, culture and a certain way of life. This Food First tour has been organized in collaboration with the Korean Peasants League, the Korean Women’s Peasant Association, and the highly acclaimed Seoul-based culinary tourism agency O’ngo Food Tours. For more information, go to: http://www.foodsovereigntytours.org/international-tours/south-korea/. *Anders Riel Müller is a Research Fellow with Food First, (a U.S. research organization dedicated to studying and acting on the unjust forces that cause hunger) and the Korea Policy Institute (a U.S. research and educational institute that provides analysis of U.S. policies toward Korea and developments on the Korean peninsula). He is currently living in Denmark where he is writing his PhD at the Danish Institute for International Studies and the Institute for Society and Globalization at Roskilde University. His dissertation is on Korean food and agriculture policy and the Korean government’s role in overseas farmland investments. **Christine Ahn is an Executive Board Member of the Korea Policy Institute. #ChristineAhn

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) has long opposed military actions on the Korean peninsula that serve to deepen and prolong a conflict that has persisted since the Korean War. This month another round of military actions and escalations by all parties are now underway in the region, including repeated simulated U.S. nuclear attacks against North Korea by B-2 and B-52 bombers in the midst of ongoing U.S.-South Korean war games. We call once again for an end to such provocative actions and a concerted effort to de-escalate and resolve the longstanding regional conflict that has taken a deep, generations-long toll on the region. Such simulations and the history of U.S. nuclear threats during past Korean crises contributed to the development of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal and its recent nuclear test, threatening to ignite a regional nuclear arms race. Military threats made routinely by North and South Korea as well as recent and possibly related cyber-attacks against North Korean media outlets and against South Korean broadcasters and banks further escalate the conflict. Provocations of this sort – routine or otherwise – can too easily lead to miscalculations, and generate fears and passions that make it difficult for political leaders to respond with necessary caution. We are sobered by the memory of how such miscalculations have triggered cataclysmic wars in the past and even brought nuclear powers to the brink of all-out war. The escalation of tensions and confrontations needs to be halted: AFSC urges all parties to step back from further provocations. AFSC further calls for the suspension of war games and military exercises on all sides. In particular, the U.S. should halt its provocative simulated nuclear attacks which are more likely to reinforce the DPRK’s commitment to its incipient nuclear arsenal, rather than to open a constructive dialogue. To set relations on a better course: AFSC urges renewed diplomatic engagement and negotiations between the North and South Korean Governments. Echoing the views of former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Donald Gregg, AFSC reminds the U.S. government that sanctions and military threats will not succeed in ending decades of militarized tensions. The Obama Administration should reach out to North Korea with the goal of negotiating a peace agreement to finally end the Korean War. Contact: Alexis Moore (215-241-7060) The American Friends Service Committee is a Quaker organization that includes people of various faiths who are committed to social justice, peace and humanitarian service. Its work is based on the belief in the worth of every person and faith in the power of love to overcome violence and injustice. #AmericanFriendsServiceCommittee

President Barack Obama is briefed by Lt. Col. Ed Taylor as he views the DMZ from Observation Post Ouellette at Camp Bonifas, Republic of Korea, March 25, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy) [Originally published in Counterpunch, April 9, 2013] Relations between the United States and North Korea have reached a nadir, and in most Western media reports it is the seemingly irrational harsh rhetoric emanating from North Korea that is to blame. Inexplicably, we are told, North Korea has chosen to raise tensions. What is missing from this image of hostile North Korean behavior and blameless American victimhood is context. As is often the case, the media present events in an isolated fashion as if arising suddenly and without cause. One does not have to look very far back in time to discern what is troubling the North Koreans. In recent months, the Obama Administration has taken a number of steps that the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the official name for North Korea) has perceived as threatening. The first step on the path to worsened relations came in October 2012, when the United States granted South Korea an exemption under the Missile Control Technology Regime, permitting it to extend the range of its ballistic missiles so that they could cover the entire territory of the DPRK.1 As a result, there was one set of terms that applied to every nation which had joined the treaty, and a different set applying only to South Korea, clearly for the purpose of targeting its neighbor to the north. That same month, U.S. and South Korean military officials met for the annual Security Consultative Meeting, where they agreed to sweeping changes in their alliance. Most importantly, they developed a plan that they termed “tailored deterrence,” which calls for joint South Korean-U.S. military operations against North Korea in a number of scenarios, including minor incidents. Any “provocation” by North Korea is to be met with disproportionate force, and according to a South Korean military official, “this strategy will be applied in both peacetime and wartime.”2 An essential component of tailored deterrence is a “kill chain” for tracking and striking North Korean missile sites, in which American satellites and drones detect targets and South Korean missiles and warplanes take them out. The plan calls for a preemptive attack based on the perception of an imminent launch of North Korean missiles. Deputy Commander of the UN Command Korea Lt. General Jan-Marc Jouas explains that North Korean missiles could be rapidly targeted “before they are in position to employ.”3 To put it plainly, an attack could be launched on missile sites based on supposition, even when North Korean missiles are not in a position to fire. On December 12, 2012, the DPRK launched an earth observation satellite into orbit, triggering condemnation by the Obama Administration, which charged that the flight was a disguised ballistic missile test. UN resolutions forbade North Korea from testing ballistic missiles, but Pyongyang argued that sending a satellite into space is not the same thing as testing a ballistic missile test. Missile technology experts tend to agree, pointing out that the missile the DPRK launched lacked the performance to serve as an ICBM and its flight path took a sharp turn to avoid flying over Taiwan and the Philippines, an action that is counter-productive for a ballistic missile test.4 South Korean naval vessels managed to salvage debris from the North Korean missile. Analysis showed that a small engine with a low 13 to 14-ton thrust powered the second stage. Munich-based aerospace engineer Marcus Schiller reported that a low-thrust, long-burn time second stage, such as the North Koreans used, is precisely the design needed for a satellite launcher. Such a design is needed to attain a high enough altitude to place a satellite into orbit. That design, however, is inappropriate for a ballistic missile test, as it would cost more than 1,000 kilometers in range. To test a ballistic missile, the second stage should have the opposite design, having a high-thrust and short burn-time. Schiller concludes that Western media reports that North Korea’s satellite launch served as a ballistic missile test “are not true.”5 Michael Elleman, security analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, notes that the results of a satellite launch “have limited application to ballistic missiles,” as only a fraction of issues can be tested. “Other requirements, most notably re-entry technologies and operational flexibility requirements, cannot be adequately addressed by satellite launches.” Elleman reports that for these and other reasons, North Korea’s satellite missile launches “are not a substitute for ballistic missile testing.”6 Interestingly, on the same day that North Korea lofted its satellite into space, India, another nuclear power, test fired a ballistic missile without American officials voicing a complaint.7 The United States is not lacking in aerospace engineers, and U.S. officials were surely aware that North Korea’s satellite launch could not be technologically construed as a disguised ballistic missile test. It appears that the Obama Administration deliberately chose to misrepresent the nature of the launch in order to further its own political ends. The satellite launch provided the Obama Administration with an opportunity to tighten the noose around North Korea, and after extensive negotiations it managed to push a resolution through the United Nations Security Council. As U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland explained it, the Obama Administration’s intent was “to continue to increase the pressure on the North Korean regime. And we’re looking at how best to do that, both bilaterally and with our partners going forward. Until they get the message, we’re going to have to continue to further isolate this regime.”8 With the passage of UN Security Council resolution 2087 on January 22, 2013, new sanctions were imposed on North Korea, despite the fact that the international outer space treaty grants the right to explore space to “all states without discrimination of any kind.”9 North Korea reacted angrily to being singled out as the only nation on earth denied the right to launch a satellite. The DPRK was disinclined to acquiesce in the imposition of additional sanctions, when its economy was already reeling from existing sanctions. A DPRK Foreign Ministry spokesman pointed out that by ramming the resolution through the Security Council, the United States had violated the UN Charter, which states “the Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.” Speaking at the United Nations, DPRK delegate So Se Pyong declared, “There were no less than 2,000 nuclear tests and at least 9,000 satellite launches in the world since the UN came into existence, but never has there been even a single resolution of its Security Council that banned nuclear test and satellite launch.” Adding that the United States has carried out more nuclear tests and satellite launches than any other nation, the delegate said that the United States should not be allowed to block North Korea from exercising its right “to use space for peaceful purposes,” nor to use the United Nations “as a tool for executing its hostile policy toward the DPRK.”10 To no one’s surprise, North Korea chose to express its resistance to the aggressiveness of U.S. policy by conducting its third nuclear test on February 12, 2013. Several days later, in an apparent reference to Iraq and Libya, North Korean media recalled the fates that had befallen those nations that had abandoned their nuclear weapons programs in response to U.S. pressure. Those examples, it added, “teach the truth that the U.S. nuclear blackmail should be countered with substantial countermeasures, not with compromise or retreat.”11 One day after the nuclear test, the South Korean Ministry of National Defense announced that it had deployed cruise missiles capable of striking anywhere in North Korea and that it would accelerate development of ballistic missiles of similar range. Furthermore, implementation of the kill chain would be sped up.12 Originally planned for completion in 2015, the kill chain is now on track to be in place by the end of this year.13 While discussions were underway in the United Nations Security Council on imposing additional sanctions on North Korea, the European Union forged ahead with its own set of measures, including a prohibition on trade with North Korean public entities and trade in DPRK public bonds. It also placed a ban on European banks opening in the DPRK and North Korean banks establishing a branch in the EU.14 It took more than three weeks to negotiate a United Nations Security Council resolution in response to the North Korean nuclear test. The most contentious issue was whether or not to include Chapter 7, Article 42, which would have authorized military enforcement. The United States and South Korea both argued strongly for its inclusion. Another difficult issue was inspection of North Korean cargo ships, and there was extensive discussion before the United States and China agreed on the extent of inspections.15 The Chinese refused to agree to military enforcement, rightly fearing that it would increase the risk of war. Nor would they go along with some of the harsher measures that the United States had included as a wish list in its draft.16 Military enforcement would have been particularly dangerous, given the history of how Article 42 has served as a path for the United States to wage war. Although the United States did not get everything it wanted, the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 2094 on March 7, 2013 saw it achieve many of the aims it had advocated. The resolution requires all nations to inspect North Korean ships and planes that are suspected of carrying prohibited goods. Strong restrictions are placed on North Korean banking operations. Nations are ordered to prevent North Korean individuals from transferring bulk cash, including diplomatic personnel, who are to be subjected to “enhanced vigilance” in violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.17 By targeting North Korean diplomats for surveillance, searches and detention, the United States aims to cut off one of the few remaining means the DPRK has for engaging in international monetary transactions. UN and United States banking sanctions have made most international banks unwilling to transact with North Korea, forcing the DPRK to conduct much of its foreign trade on a cash basis. It is the measure restricting business with North Korean banks that promises to inflict the most harm on the North Korean economy. “Going after the banking system in a broad brush way is arguably the strongest thing on the list,” observes former U.S. State Department official Evans J. R. Revere. “It does begin to eat into the ability of North Korea to finance many things.”18 Primarily normal trade, it should be noted. Just days later, the U.S. Department of Treasury followed up with its own sanctions, prohibiting transactions between North Korea’s Foreign Trade Bank and U.S. individuals and businesses, and placing a freeze on assets held under U.S. jurisdiction. The Foreign Trade Bank, the Treasury Department points out, is “North Korea’s primary foreign exchange bank.”19 The ban effectively prevents banks and businesses in other nations from trading with the Foreign Trade Bank, lest they be excluded from contact with the U.S. financial system. “When there’s a foreign bank that U.S. banks aren’t doing business with, banks in other countries start to avoid transactions with it,” remarks a financial specialist. “They’re worried about suffering the consequences themselves.” Typically, international trade is based on the dollar, requiring transactions to process through the U.S. financial system. For that reason, “Chinese banks aren’t going to be able to help North Korea out,” adds the financial analyst.20 For its part, South Korea has adopted policies that increase the danger of war. According to a South Korean military official, “Commanders have been given the authority to act first at discretion in the event of a North Korean provocation to inflict a retaliation that is more than ten times as harsh as the level of provocation.”21 Director of Operations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Kim Yong-hyon states that in response to an incident South Korean armed forces “will resolutely punish not only the origin of the provocation but also its commanding forces.”22 It does not require much imagination to recognize how such a policy has the potential of transforming a minor skirmish into a war. The United States and South Korea have recently signed a counter-provocation plan, in which U.S. forces are pledged to provide support when South Korean forces attack a North Korean target. The plan spells out actions that are to be taken in response to various scenarios. According to a South Korean military official, it takes into account the South Korean policy “which calls for launching counterstrikes at not only the origin of provocation, but also forces supporting it and its commanders.” In some scenarios “U.S. weapons could be mobilized to strike back at North Korea’s territorial waters and soil.”23 The counter-provocation plan requires South Korea to consult with the United States before taking action, but if Seoul requests assistance the United States cannot refuse to take part in military operations.24 In a mighty demonstration meant to intimidate North Korea, the United States and South Korea began their annual Key Resolve military exercise on March 11, overlapping with the two-month Foal Eagle military exercise that began on March first. During the exercise, nuclear-capable B-52 bombers took off from Guam and dropped practice munitions in South Korea.25 U.S. commanders knew this action would inflame North Korean sensibilities, given the stinging memory North Koreans have of the Korean War, when U.S. bombers carried out a scorched earth policy and razed every North Korean town and city to the ground. The United States further ratcheted up pressure on the DPRK by sending the nuclear-powered submarine USS Cheyenne, equipped with Tomahawk missiles, to participate in Foal Eagle.26 Soon thereafter, B-2 Stealth bombers flew over South Korea in military exercises. “As the B-2 has radar-evading stealth function, it can penetrate the anti-aircraft defense to drop conventional and nuclear weapons,” commented a military official. “It is the strategic weapon most feared by North Korea.”27 The B-2, it should be noted, is the only plane capable of delivering the 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator bomb, which can bore through 200 feet of concrete before detonating. The plane can also carry multiple nuclear weapons. Continuing to escalate the show of force, the United States next sent advanced F-22 Stealth fighter planes to South Korea.28 The South Korean government asked the United States not to show the planes in public because it would be an unneeded provocation to North Korea. That request went unheeded by the United States.29 In a boost to South Korea’s arsenal, the United States has approved the sale of 200 bunker buster bombs, suitable for targeting North Korean underground facilities. Plans call for the bombs to be deployed by the end of the year.30 South Korea also plans to purchase 200 air-launched Taurus cruise missiles from Europe, which are capable of penetrating up to six meters of reinforced concrete.31 As part of its planning for future contingencies, the United States has formed a military organization responsible for entering North Korea and seizing nuclear facilities and weapons in the event of a crisis in the DPRK. In that scenario, U.S. forces would also arrest “key figures” and gather classified information. Which North Korean individuals would be subject to arrest by U.S. forces has not been disclosed. The force would be comprised of U.S. armed forces, intelligence operatives and anti-terrorism personnel. A mock drill implementing the plan was part of the recently concluded Key Resolve exercises.32 Having done everything to provoke the North Koreans, the Obama Administration has seized the opportunity to point to their reaction as justification for deploying a wish list of anti-missile hardware. The Pentagon announced that it would station an additional 14 interceptor missiles at Fort Greely, Alaska and would proceed with its plan to place a second anti-missile radar in Japan.33 A Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery is slated to be trotted out on Guam for its first deployment,34 and the sea-based SBX-1 X-Band Radar platform is moving closer to the western Pacific, in what the Navy says may be the first of other naval deployments.35 The Wall Street Journal reports that the show of military force was planned in advance, in what the Obama Administration termed “the playbook.” The United States acted with the deliberate intention of threatening North Korea. According to the article, the administration decided to place the playbook on “pause” only when the media revealed the deployment of two guided missile destroyers to the western Pacific, and it was felt that perhaps this news risked pushing the North Koreans too far. The deployment of destroyers, it was said, was not meant to be publicized. The next steps in the playbook have been put on hold for the time being.36 It has also been reported that the United States will delay a test flight of a Minuteman ICBM by one month, in order not to raise tensions. The perception that the Obama Administration wishes to convey to the American and world public, then, is that the United States is acting responsibly in order to defuse the situation. A high-ranking defense official, however, says, “There was no White House secrecy order” regarding the deployment of the destroyers. Furthermore, recently deployed military hardware are not withdrawing, while the large-scale combined U.S.-South Korean Foal Eagle military exercise on North Korea’s doorstep continues without letup.37 Despite claims that it is toning down its actions, the Obama Administration is doing the opposite. U.S. officials say they do not intend to reengage with the DPRK.38 Tailored deterrence and the kill chain are on accelerated schedules, placing the Korean Peninsula on the knife edge of war. Meanwhile, the United States is working hard to persuade other nations to sanction the DPRK’s Foreign Trade Bank and is considering other ways in which it can bring about North Korea’s economic collapse. An unnamed U.S. State Department official remarked that there was still room for enlarging sanctions. “I don’t know what will succeed, but we haven’t ‘maxed out’; there is headroom, and we have to give it a try.”39 U.S. officials have asked the European Union to sanction the Foreign Trade Bank, and further discussions are expected along those lines.40 Japan and Australia have already agreed to join the United States in sanctioning the bank, and Treasury Department official David Cohen and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew have both asked China to do the same.41 President Obama made a personal phone call to Chinese President Xi Jinping, urging him to sanction the Foreign Trade Bank, and U.S. officials continue to pressure China, insisting that if China does not “crackdown” on North Korea, the U.S. will increase its military forces in Asia.42 That outcome, the Chinese surely recognize, would be aimed at them as well as North Korea. The choice that the Obama Administration is offering is that the Chinese can either watch the United States expand its militarization of the region and tighten its encirclement of China, or cave in to American pressure and cooperate in bringing economic ruin to North Korea. It is probable that in choosing the latter option, the Chinese would discover that the United States has no intention of slowing down its Asia pivot and its military presence in the region would grow regardless. A diplomatic source reveals that whether or not China agrees to go along with U.S. demands, the effect on North Korea’s economy may be the same. “What the U.S. government is seeking is to put psychological pressure on Chinese banks. If U.S. banks avoid transactions with Chinese banks that have ties with blacklisted North Korean banks or other entities, it could lead to effects similar to those from secondary boycott sanctions.”43 Without question, North Korean officials and media have been issuing fire-breathing proclamations, and they have taken actions such as severing the military hotline with South Korea, announcing their intention of restarting the Yongbyon nuclear reactor, and temporarily closing the Kaesong Industrial Complex, which appear to recklessly exacerbate tensions. Yet, there is logic to their behavior. The Obama Administration has never been willing to negotiate with North Korea, and it clearly aims to effect regime change as it piles sanctions upon sanctions and develops military plans that threaten the DPRK’s existence. In effect, U.S. actions have encouraged North Korea to develop a nuclear weapons program as its only realistic deterrent against attack, given the outmoded technology of its conventional weaponry. However, North Korean officials know that the U.S. knows that they do not yet have a usable nuclear weapon, nor do they have a suitable delivery vehicle. The DPRK has limited options, and for now North Korean officials apparently feel they have only two choices. They can either meekly accept round after round of punishment while helplessly witnessing the mounting damage to their economy and threats to their nation, or they can ramp up their rhetoric as a means of sending a message to the United States. That message is that if the United States hits North Korea it will get a stronger response than it expects, and it should think twice before striking, and the more the United States applies pressure, the more the DPRK will resist. Unfortunately, this produces a feedback loop, where the more the United States punishes the DPRK, the stronger the North Koreans resist, and the more they resist, the more punishment comes their way. The only apparent way out of this impasse is a peace process, but the Obama Administration remains adamantly opposed to negotiations. International Affairs analyst Chen Qi of Tsinghua University points out that the United States “did not respect the security concerns of the DPRK and that is the reason why the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula has not been solved.” Chen suggests, “Washington may not want Pyongyang’s nuclear issue to be solved because it offers an excuse for the U.S. to deploy anti-missile systems and hold military drills in the region, which are in line with its military rebalance to East Asia.”44 U.S. officials, it should also be kept in mind, have never hidden their desire to bring about regime change in North Korea, regardless of the dangers of that policy. A change in U.S. policy may never come about unless South Korea firmly leads the way, and that is an unlikely prospect at the present. Such a change may have to wait five years, when the next presidential election takes place in South Korea. That is a long time, given U.S. plans to heighten tensions on the Korean Peninsula. If South Korea does not show leadership for an alternative approach before then, the question is how long tensions can simmer without boiling over into a dangerous crisis. *Gregory Elich is on the Board of Directors of the Jasenovac Research Institute and on the Advisory Boards of the Korea Policy Institute and the Korea Truth Commission. He is the author of the book Strange Liberators: Militarism, Mayhem, and the Pursuit of Profit. Notes http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/10/18/militarizing-south-korea/ http://www.kpolicy.org/documents/interviews-opeds/121204gregoryelichmappingthefutureussk.html http://www.kpolicy.org/documents/interviews-opeds/121204gregoryelichmappingthefutureussk.html http://www.globalresearch.ca/putting-the-squeeze-on-north-korea/53216 David Wright, “Markus Schiller’s Analysis of North Korea’s Unha-3 Launcher,” All Things Nuclear, February 22, 2013. Michael Elleman, “Prelude to an ICBM? Putting North Korea’s Unha-3 Launch into Context,” Arms Control Association, March 2013. http://www.globalresearch.ca/putting-the-squeeze-on-north-korea/5321689 http://www.globalresearch.ca/putting-the-squeeze-on-north-korea/5321689 http://www.oosa.unvienna.org/oosa/SpaceLaw/outerspt.html “DPRK Delegate Makes Speech at UN Special Committee Session,” KCNA, February 23, 2013. Stephanie Nebehay, “North Korea Blames U.S. for Tension on Peninsula,” Reuters, February 27, 2013. “Nuclear Test, Part of DPRK’s Substantial Countermeasures to Defend its Sovereignty: KCNA Commentary,” KCNA, February 21, 2013. Kim Eun-jung, “S. Korea Beefs Up Integrated Air and Missile Defense,” Yonhap, February 13, 2013. Kim Hee-jin, “Military Deploys Cruise Missiles in Reaction to North,” JoongAng Ilbo, February 14, 2013. S. Korea, US to Discuss Stopping NK’s Nuclear Program,” Dong-A Ilbo, February 21, 2013. Adrian Croft, “EU to Tighten Sanctions on North Korea after Nuclear Test,” Reuters, February 15, 2013. Lee Chi-dong, “‘Strongest Sanctions’ on NK, Output of Artful U.N. Diplomacy,” Yonhap, March 8, 2013. “S. Korea Seeks U.N. Resolution with Military Means Against N. Korea,” Yonhap, February 15, 2013. Park Hyun and Park Min-hee, “US and China Butting Heads over North Korea,” Hankyoreh, February 15, 2013. Peter Ford, “China Agrees to Sanction North Korea, but How Far will it Go?,” Christian Science Monitor, March 6, 2013. Security Council SC/10934, “Security Council Strengthens Sanctions on Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in Response to 12 February Nuclear Test,” UN Security Council, March 7, 2013. Park Hyun, “UN Expected to Pass Exceptionally Tough Sanctions on North Korea,” Hankyoreh, March 7, 2013. Rick Gladstone, “U.N. Resolution to Aim at North Korean Banks and Diplomats,” New York Times, March 5, 2013. Press Release, “Treasury Sanctions Bank and Official Linked to North Korean Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs,” U.S. Department of Treasury, March 11, 2013. Park Hyun, “New Unilateral US Sanctions Target North Korean Banks,” Hankyoreh, March 14, 2013. Kim Kui-kun, “North’s Threat Offensive…Signing of ‘ROK-US Counter Provocation Plan’ Delayed,” Yonhap, March 12, 2013. Yi Yong-chong, “Secures Coordinates for a Commander’s Office of the North; If Missile Launched Against It,” JoongAng Ilbo, March 11, 2013. Song Sang-ho, “Korea, U.S. Set Up Plan to Counter N.K. Provocation,” Korea Herald, March 24, 2013. Hong Jin-su, “U.S. Military Will Intervene Under Certain Conditions Following North Korean Provocation,” Kyunhyang Shinmun, March 25, 2013. Lee Chi-dong, “B-52 Bombers in Korea Show U.S. Defense Commitment: Pentagon,” Yonhap, March 19, 2013. Kang Seung-woo, “Nuclear Sub Joins ROK-US Joint Naval Drill,” Korea Times, March 20, 2013. Kim Eun-jung, “U.S. B-2 Stealth Bomber Conducts First Drill in Korea,” Yonhap, March 28, 2013. Paul Eckert, “U.S. Stealth Jets Join South Korea Drills Amid Saber-Rattling,” Reuters, March 31, 2013. “F-22 Stealth Jets Join Drills in S.Korea,” Chosun Ilbo, April 2, 2013. Kim Eun-jung, “U.S. B-2 Stealth Bomber Conducts First Drill in Korea,” Yonhap, March 28, 2013. Song Sang-ho, “B-2 Stealth Bombers Conduct Firing Drills on Peninsula,” Korea Herald, March 28, 2013. “S.Korea to Buy Bunker-Buster Missiles from Europe,” Chosun Ilbo, April 4, 2013. “Pres. Park Urges Preventing NK from ‘Daring’ to Launch Attack,” Dong-A Ilbo, April 3, 2013. “US Organ to Take Over NK Nuke Facilities in Case of Crisis,” Dong-a Ilbo, March 7, 2013. Kate Brannen, “North Korea Sparks Missile Defense Upgrade in Alaska,” Politico, March 15, 2013. Phil Stewart and David Alexander, “U.S. to Bolster Missile Defenses to Counter North Korea Threat: Hagel,” Reuters, March 15, 2013. Julian E. Barnes and Adam Entous, “With an Eye on Pyongyang, U.S. Sending Missile Defenses to Guam,” Wall Street Journal, April 3, 2013. Barbara Starr, Jethro Mullen and K.J. Kwon, CNN, April 1, 2013. Adam Entous and Julian E. Barnes, “U.S. Dials Back on Korean Show of Force,” Wall Street Journal, April 3, 2013. Kevin Baron, “Who Exactly Ordered Those Destroyers Against Korea?,” The E-Ring (Foreign Policy), April 4, 2013. Jay Solomon and Julian E. Barnes, “North Korea Warned,” Wall Street Journal, March 29, 2013. Adrian Croft, “U.S. Wants EU to Put North Korean Bank on Sanctions List,” Reuters, March 25, 2013. Adrian Croft, “U.S. Wants EU to Put North Korean Bank on Sanctions List,” Reuters, March 25, 2013. Antoni Slodkowski and Warren Strobel, “Japan, Australia to Sanction North Korean Bank as Part of U.S.-Led Crackdown,” Reuters, March 26, 2013. “U.S. Urges Nations to Cut North Korea’s Financial Link,” CBS News, April 5, 2013. Mark Landler, “Detecting Shift, U.S. Makes Case to China on North Korea,” New York Times, April 5, 2013. Lee Chi-dong, “U.S. Officials Discussing Iran-Style Sanctions on N. Korea: Source,” Yonhap, March 20, 2013. Scott Murdoch, “Beijing Tells US to Tone Down North Korea Threats,” The Australian, February 19, 2013. #GregoryElich

This long post examines the causes of and offers a response to the dangerous escalation of tensions on the Korean peninsula. While the details of U.S.-North Korean relations are complex, the story is relatively simple. In brief, the U.S. government continues to reject possibilities for normalizing relations with North Korea and promoting peace on the Korean peninsula in favor of a dangerous policy of regime change. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the U.S. media supports this policy choice with a deliberately one sided presentation of events designed to make North Korea appear to be an unwilling and untrustworthy negotiating partner. As a corrective, in what follows I offer a more complete history of U.S -North Korean relations, focusing on the major events that frame current tensions over North Korea’s nuclear program. This history makes clear that these tensions are largely the result of repeated and deliberate U.S. provocations and that our best hope for peace on the Korean Peninsula is an educated U.S. population ready and able to challenge and change U.S. foreign policy. Historical Context Perhaps the best starting point for understanding the logic of U.S.-North Korean relations is the end of Korean War fighting in 1953. At U.S. insistence, the fighting ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty. A Geneva conference held the following year failed to secure the peace or the reunification of Korea, and U.S. demands were the main reason for the failure. The United States rejected North Korean calls for Korea-wide elections, supervised by a commission of neutral nation representatives, to establish a new unified Korean government, a proposal that even many U.S. allies found reasonable. Instead, the U.S. insisted, along with South Korea, that elections for a new government be held only in the North and under the supervision of the U.S. dominated United Nations. Needless to say, the conference ended without any final declaration, Korea divided, and the United States and North Korea in a continuing state of war. Up until the late 1980s/early 1990s, an interrelated, contentious but relatively stable set of relationships—between the United States and the Soviet Union and between North Korea and South Korea—kept North Korean-U.S. hostilities in check. The end of the Soviet Union and transformation of Russia and other Central European countries into capitalist countries changed everything. The loss of its major economic partners threw North Korea’s economy into chaos; conditions only worsened the following years as a result of alternating periods of flood and drought. The North Korean government, now in a relatively weak position, responded by seeking new trade and investment partners, which above all required normalization of relations with the United States. The U.S. government had a different response to the changed circumstances; seeking to take advantage of the North’s economic problems and political isolation, it rejected negotiations and pursued regime change. It is the interplay of U.S. and North Korean efforts to achieve their respective aims that is largely responsible for the following oft repeated pattern of interaction: the North tries to force the United States into direct talks by demonstrating its ability to boost its military capacities and threaten U.S. interests while simultaneously offering to negotiate away those capacities in exchange for normalized relations. The United States, in turn, seizes on such demonstrations to justify ever harsher economic sanctions, which then leads North Korea to up the ante. There are occasional interruptions to the pattern. At times, the United States, concerned with North Korean military advances, will enter into negotiations. Agreements are even signed. But, the U.S. rarely follows through on its commitments. Then the pattern resumes. The critical point here is that it is the North that wants to conclude a peace treaty ending the Korean War and normalize relations with the United States. It is the U.S. that is the unwilling partner, preferring to risk war in the hopes of toppling the North Korean regime. The Framework Agreement, 1994-2002 The U.S. government began to raise public concerns about a possible North Korean nuclear threat almost immediately after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. These concerns were driven my many factors, in particular the U.S. need for a new enemy to justify continued high levels of military spending. Colin Powell, then head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, explained in testimony to Congress that with the Soviet Union gone, the United States was running out of enemies. All that was left, he said, was Fidel Castro and Kim Il Sung. The North had shut down its one operating reactor in 1989 for repairs. In 1992, the CIA claimed that the North used the shutdown to reprocess plutonium and was now in possession of one or two nuclear weapons, a claim disputed at the time by the State Department. The North also denied the claim but offered to settle U.S. nuclear concerns if the United States would enter into normalization talks. The Clinton Administration rejected the invitation and began planning for war. War was averted only because of Jimmy Carter’s intervention. He traveled to North Korea and brokered an agreement with Kim Il Sung that Clinton reluctantly accepted. The resulting 1994 Framework Agreement required the North to freeze its graphite-moderated reactor and halt construction of two bigger reactors. It also required the North to store the spent fuel from its operating reactor under International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) supervision. In exchange, the U.S agreed to coordinate the building of two new light water reactors (which are considered less militarily dangerous) that were to be finished by 2003. Once the reactors were completed, but before they were fully operational, the North would have to allow full IAEA inspections of all its nuclear facilities. During the period of construction, the U.S. agreed to provide the North with shipments of heavy oil for heating and electricity production. Perhaps most importantly, the agreement also called for the United States to “move toward full normalization of political and economic relations” with the North and “provide formal assurances to the DPRK against the threat or use of nuclear weapons by the United States.” Tragically, although rarely mentioned in the U.S. media, the U.S. government did little to meet its commitments. It was repeatedly late in delivering the promised oil and didn’t begin lifting sanctions until June 2000. Even more telling, the concrete for the first light water reactor wasn’t poured until August 2002. Years later, U.S. government documents revealed that the United States made no attempt to complete the reactors because officials were convinced that the North Korean regime would collapse. The Bush administration had no use for the Framework Agreement and was more than happy to see it terminated, which it unilaterally did in late 2002, after charging the North with violating its terms by pursuing nuclear weapons through a secret uranium enrichment program. Prior to that, in January 2002, President Bush branded North Korea a member of the “axis of evil.” In March, the terms of a new military doctrine were leaked, revealing that the United States reserved the right to take preemptive military strikes and covert actions against nations possessing nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons as well as use nuclear weapons as an option in any conflict; North Korea was listed as one of the targeted nations. In July, President Bush rejected a North Korean request for a meeting of foreign ministers, calling Kim Jong Il a “pygmy” and a “spoiled child at the dinner table.” It is certainly possible that North Korea did begin a uranium enrichment program in the late 1990s, although the Bush Administration never provided proof of the program’s existence. However, what is clear is that the North did halt its plutonium program, allowing its facilities to deteriorate, with little to show for it. The failure of the United States to live up to its side of the agreement is highlighted by the fact that North Korea’s current demands are no different from what it was promised in 1994. The North Korean government responded to the Bush administration’s unilateral termination of the Framework Agreement by ordering IAEA inspectors out of the country, restarting its plutonium program, and pledging to build a nuclear arsenal for its defense. Six Party Talks, 2003-7 Fearful of a new war on the Korean peninsula, the Chinese government organized talks aimed at deescalating tensions between the United States and North Korea. The talks began in August 2003 and included six countries—the United States, North Korea, South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia. Two years of talks failed to produce any progress in resolving U.S.-North Korea differences. One reason: the U.S. representative was under orders not to speak directly to his North Korean counterpart except to demand that North Korea end its nuclear activities, scrap its missiles, reduce its conventional forces, and end human rights abuses. The North, for its part, refused to discuss its nuclear program separate from its broader relations with the United States. Finally, in mid-2005, the Chinese made it known that they were prepared to declare the talks a failure and would blame the United States for the outcome. Not long after, the United States ended its opposition to an agreement. In September 2005, the six countries issued a Joint Statement, which was largely a repackaged Framework Agreement. While all the countries pledged to work towards the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, most of the concrete steps were to be taken by the United States and North Korea “in a phased manner in line with the principle of ‘commitment for commitment, action for action’.” Unfortunately, the day after the Joint Statement was issued, the United States sabotaged it. The U.S. Treasury announced that it had “proof” that North Korea was counterfeiting $100 bills, so called super notes, an action it said amounted to war. It singled out the Macao-based Banco Delta Asia, which was one of North Korea’s main financial connections to the west, for supporting the country’s illegal activities, froze its dollar accounts, and warned other banks not to conduct business with it or service any North Korean dollar transactions. The aim was to isolate North Korea by denying it access to international credit markets. The charge of counterfeiting was rejected by the North, most Western currency experts, and even China and Russia who were given a presentation of evidence by the U.S. Treasury. However, fearful of possible U.S. retaliation, most banks complied with U.S. policy, greatly harming the North Korean economy. The timing of the counterfeit charge was telling. The U.S. Treasury had been concerned with counterfeit super notes since 1989 and had originally blamed Iran. The sum total identified was only $50 million, and none of the notes had ever circulated in the United States. This was clearly yet another effort to stop normalization and intensify economic pressure on North Korea. The North announced that its participation in Six Party talks was contingent on the withdrawal of the counterfeit charge and the return of its Banco Delta Asia dollar deposits. After months of inaction by the United States, the North took action. On July 4, 2006, it test-fired six missiles over the Sea of Japan, including an intercontinental missile. The U.S. and Japan condemned the missile firings and further tightened their sanctions against North Korea. In response, on October 8, 2006, North Korea conducted its first nuclear test. Finally, the U.S. agreed to reconsider its financial embargo and the North agreed that if its money was returned and it received energy supplies and economic assistance it was willing to once again shutdown its nuclear facilities, readmit international inspectors, and discuss nuclear disarmament in line with steps toward normalization of relations with the United States. The Six Party talks began again in December 2006 but the process of securing implementation of the Joint Statement was anything but smooth. The U.S. chief negotiator at the talks announced in February 2007 that all frozen North Korean deposits would be unfrozen and made available to the North within 30 days; the North was given 60 days to shut down its reactor. However, the Treasury refused to withdraw its charges, and no bank was willing to handle the money for fear of being targeted as complicit with terrorism. It took the State Department until June 25 to work out a back-door alternative arrangement, thereby finally allowing the Six Party agreement to go into effect. The Six Party Agreement, 2007-9 As noted above, the Six Party agreement involved a phased process. Phase 1, although behind schedule because of the U.S. delay in releasing North Korean funds, was completed with no problems. In July 2007, North Korea shut down and sealed its Yongbyon nuclear complex which housed its reactor, reprocessing facility, and fuel rod fabrication plant. It also shut down and sealed its two partially constructed nuclear reactors. It also invited back IAEA inspectors who verified the North Korean actions. In return, the U.S. provided a shipment of fuel oil. Phase 2, which began in October, required the North to disable all its nuclear facilities by December 31, 2007 and “provide a complete and correct declaration of all its existing nuclear programs.” In a separate agreement it also agreed to disclose the status of its uranium enrichment activities. In exchange, the North was to receive, in stages, “economic, energy, and humanitarian assistance.” Once it fulfilled all Phase 2 requirements it would also be removed from the U.S. Trading with the Enemy Act and the State Sponsors of Terrorism list. North Korean complaints over the slow delivery of fuel oil delayed the completion of this second phase. However, in May 2008, North Korea completed the last stage of its required Phase 2 actions when it released extensive documentation of its plutonium program and in June a declaration of its nuclear inventory. In response, the U.S. removed North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism. However, the U.S. government failed to release the remaining promised aid or end the remaining sanctions on North Korea. It now demanded that North Korea accept a highly intrusive verification protocol, one that would open up all North Korean military installations to U.S. inspection, and made satisfaction of Phase 2 commitments dependent on its acceptance. The U.S. was well aware that this demand was not part of the original agreement. As Secretary of State Rice stated, “What we’ve done, in a sense, is move up issues that were to be taken up in phase three, like verification, like access to the reactors, into phase two.” The North offered a compromise—a Six Party verification mechanism which would include visits to declared nuclear sites and interviews with technical personal. It also offered to negotiate a further verification protocol in the final dismantlement phase. The U.S. government rejected the compromise and ended all aid deliveries. In February 2009, the North Korea began preparation to launch a satellite. South Korea was preparing to launch a satellite of its own in July. The North had signed the appropriate international protocols governing satellites and was now providing, as required, notification of its launch plan. The Obama administration warned the North that doing so would violate sanctions placed on the country after its nuclear test. In response, the North declared that it had every right to develop its satellite technology and if the U.S. responded with new sanctions it would withdraw from the Six Party talks, eject IAEA monitors, restart its reactors, and strengthen its nuclear deterrent. The North launched its satellite in April. In June, the U.S. won UN support for enhanced sanctions, and the North followed through on its threat. In May the North conducted a second nuclear test, producing yet another round of sanctions. Recent Events In April and December 2012 the North again launched earth observation satellites. Although before each of these launches the U.S. asserted that these were veiled attempts to test ballistic missiles designed to threaten the United States, after each launch almost all observers agreed that the characteristics of the launches—their flight pattern and the second stage low-thrust, long burntime—were what is required to put a satellite in space and not consistent with a missile test. After the December launch, the only successful one, the U.S. again convinced the Security Council to apply a new round of sanctions. And in response, the North carried out its third nuclear test in February 2013. The North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs pointed out that there have been “more than 2,000 nuclear tests and 9,000 satellite launches” in the world, “but the UN Security Council has never passed a resolution prohibiting nuclear tests or satellite launches.” The Security Council responded to the North’s nuclear test by approving stricter sanctions. In addition to sanctions, the U.S. has also intensified its military provocations against the North in hopes of destabilizing the new North Korean regime led by Kim Jung Un. For example, in 2012, U.S.-South Korean military analysts conducted the world’s largest computerized war simulation exercise, practicing the deployment of more than 100,000 South Korean troops into North Korea to “stabilize the country in case of regime collapse.” As part of their yearly war games, U.S. and South Korean forces also carried out their largest amphibious landing operations in 20 years; 13 naval vessels, 52 amphibious armored vehicles, 40 fighter jets and helicopters, and 9,000 U.S. troops were involved. As part of its March 2013 war games, the U.S. flew nuclear-capable B-2 Stealth bombers over South Korea; these are also the only planes capable of dropping the 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator bomb, which was developed to destroy North Korean underground facilities. Nuclear-capable B-52 bombers also flew over South Korea, dropping dummy munitions. The United States also sent the nuclear-powered submarine USS Cheyenne, equipped with Tomahawk missiles, into Korea waters. The North Korean government responded to these threats in three ways. First, the content of their declarations changed. In particular, they began to focus their own threats on the U.S. as well as South Korea. For example, the government stated, “If the US imperialists brandish nuclear weapons, we — in complete contrast to former times — will by means of diversified, precision nuclear strike in our own style turn not just Seoul, but even Washington, into a sea of fire.” It also asserted, for the first time, that its nuclear weapons were no longer negotiable. At least, not “as long as the United States’ nuclear threats and hostile policy exist.” Second, the government put North Korean forces on full alert, including all artillery, rockets, and missiles. Kim Jong Un announced that the country would “answer the US imperialists’ nuclear blackmail with a merciless nuclear attack.” Finally, it announced, in April, that it would restart its uranium enrichment program and its Yongbyon reactor. What Lies Ahead The Obama administration has adopted what it has called the doctrine of “strategic patience” in dealing with North Korea. But as made clear from above, in reality the U.S. has continued to pursue an aggressive policy towards North Korea, motivated by the hope that the regime will collapse and Korean reunification will be achieved by the South’s absorption of the North, much like the German experience. The consequence of this policy is ever worsening economic conditions in the North; continuing military buildup in the United States, Japan, China, and both North and South Korea; a strengthening of right-wing forces in South Korea and Japan; and the growing threat of a new war on the Korean peninsula. There are powerful interests in Japan, South Korea, and the United States that are eager to further militarize their respective domestic and foreign policies, even at the risk of war. Tragically, their pursuit of this goal comes at great cost to majorities in all the countries concerned, even if war is averted. The North has made clear its willingness to enter direct talks with the United States. It is only popular pressure in the United States that will cause the U.S. government to change its policy and accept the North Korean offer. It is time for the U.S. government to sign a peace treaty finally ending the Korean War and take sincere steps towards normalization of relations with North Korea. *Martin Hart-Landsberg is Professor of Economics and Director of the Political Economy Program at Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon; and Adjunct Researcher at the Institute for Social Sciences, Gyeongsang National University, South Korea. His areas of teaching and research include political economy, economic development, international economics, and the political economy of East Asia. He is also a member of the Workers’ Rights Board (Portland, Oregon).

Ending the Korean War: A Conference, Film screenings and Community Action May 8-11th, 2013 2013 marked the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Korean War Armistice Agreement, which brought a halt to the fighting. However, the Korean War has never ended and the current crisis only emphasizes the danger of renewed hostilities. The May 8th film screenings and May 9th conference were sponsored by: Korea Policy Institute, Center for Korean Studies, Asian Languages & Cultures, United Methodist Women, Channing and Popai Liem Education Foundation, Alliance of Scholars Concerned about Korea, National Campaign to End the Korean War, Nodutdol for Korean Community Development, UCLA East Asian Library Wednesday, May 08, 2013 – Film Screenings: 7 PM James Bridges Theater. UCLA . Memory of Forgotten War by Deann Borshay Liem and Ramsay Liem (2013) Memory of Forgotten War conveys the human costs of military conflict through deeply personal accounts of the Korean War (1950-53) by four Korean-American survivors. Their stories take audiences through the trajectory of the war, from extensive bombing campaigns, to day-to-day struggle for survival and separation from family members across the DMZ. Decades later, each person reunites with relatives in North Korea, conveying beyond words the meaning of family loss. These stories belie the notion that war ends when the guns are silenced and foreshadow the future of countless others displaced by ongoing military conflict today. Read an interview with the filmmakers in the LA Times. The Woman, The Orphan and The Tiger by Jane Jin Kaisen (2010) The Woman, The Orphan, and The Tiger follows a group of international adoptees and other women of the Korean diaspora in their twenties and thirties. It explores the ways in which trauma is passed on from generations to the present through a sense of being haunted. The filmmakers were present and spoke at the screenings. Thursday, May 09, 2013: Ending the Korean War Conference 9:30 AM – 5:00 PM Main Conference Room, Charles E. Young Research Library UCLA9:30 WelcomeJohn Duncan, UCLAChristine Hong, Korea Policy Institute and UC Santa Cruz9:40 – 10:20 Keynote AddressBruce Cumings, University of Chicago10:20 – 12:00 Panel 1: Testimonials (moderated by Namhee Lee, UCLA)Moon Jae Pak, MD, Chairman of US-North Korea Medical Science Exchange CommitteeSyngman Rhee, Reverend, former President of the National Council of Churches USA George and Dorothy Ogle, former missionaries to Korea James Chun, Korean American resident of LA and separated family member12:00 – 12:30 Teaching Initiative to End the Korean War Workshop led by Albert Park, Claremont McKenna College and Alliance of Scholars Concerned about Korea12:30 – 1:15 Lunch1:15 – 2:50 Panel 2: Gender and Militarism (moderated by Sung-ok Lee, United Methodist Women)Young Hee Jeong, peace activist from Jeju IslandHosu Kim, Assistant Professor of Sociology at City University of New York Christine Ahn, board member of Korea Policy Institute2:50 – 3:00 Break3:00 – 4:20 Panel 3: People-to-People Programs /North Korean Humanitarian Assistance (moderated by  Christine Hong, Korea Policy Institute and UC Santa Cruz)Pilju Kim Joo, founder of Agglobe Services InternationalIndong Oh, MD, orthopedic surgeon, Los Angeles Erich Weingartner, editor of CanKor4:20 – 4:50 Closing Discussion and Wrap-up RemarksPaul Liem, Korea Policy Institute Open to the Public. Cost : Free Friday, May 10th, 2013 Day of Action – a gathering of faith based community members concerned about peace in Korea. Sponsored by the United Methodist Women Saturday, May 11th, 2013 Community gathering of Korean Americans active on Korea and Korean American related issues. Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance

[Originally published in Hankyoreh, May 8, 2013] Political cartoonists love to portray North Korea as an irrational and infantile force. It’s either a baby with a nuclear rattle or a little truant in need of a timeout. The relative youth of the country’s leader Kim Jong Un, encourages such representations, but the practice predates his ascension to power. According to the dictates of their profession, cartoonists must exaggerate to make their points. But these exaggerations also frequently show up in the comments of pundits and politicians, who need not resort to caricature. So, for instance, observers describe North Koreans as “childlike” and their leader as a “spoiled child.” Chinese leaders, according to Wikileaks, have viewed North Korean behavior as an attempt to get the attention of the “adult.” Even top U.S. politicians fall prey to these stereotypes. In 2009, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton accused North Korea of “acting out” like an unruly child. And President Barack Obama said during the latest crisis, “You don’t get to bang … your spoon on the table and somehow you get your way.” As we slowly step back from the edge of the current conflict, it’s important to revisit these characterizations of North Korea as a fundamentally immature creature. There are many problems with U.S. policy toward the country, including lack of information, a limited number of policy options, and a preference to ignore the situation in favor of other hotspots around the world. But we also have a metaphor problem with North Korea. We commonly treat the country as if it were a donkey that responds only to carrots or sticks and doesn’t have an independent thought inside its equine head (not even horse sense). Or we view North Korea as a criminal that breaks every agreement it signs and whose recidivism rate is off the charts. But the metaphor that dominates our thinking about North Korea is even more insulting. Donkeys and criminals at least make calculations based on costs and benefits. Infants are nothing but unbridled ids whose pre-lingual motivations are largely opaque to the adult world. They go on crying jags and knock cereal bowls off trays for no apparently good reason. That North Korea is often cast as the “younger brother” in its relationships with both South Korea and China means that Pyongyang is acutely sensitive to any such infantilizing metaphors. The metaphor extends, of course, to the “parents” who are tasked with dealing with the problem child. Western governments quarrel among themselves over the best approach. Should they offer the candy of inducement or the spank of sanctions? Although corporal punishment is no longer in vogue for the most part in Western countries, physically (and preemptively) punishing North Korea is still a third option on the table, as unpersuasively argued by Jeremy Suri in The New York Times. During the most recent escalation in tensions, the Obama administration chose to treat North Korea’s actions as an inexplicable temper tantrum that required a firm parental response. It sent over B-2 and B-52 bombers to conduct mock attacks. It ramped up missile defense (actually an offensive maneuver designed to disable an adversary’s deterrent capability). It indulged in some harsh rhetoric of its own. This show of force did not cow North Korea. It merely ramped up its already over-the-top rhetoric, told the diplomatic community to leave Pyongyang and foreigners to depart Seoul, and shuttered the jointly administered Kaesong industrial complex. Only when the United States moderated its approach — for instance, cancelling a planned missile launch — did North Korea tone down its own threats and hyperbole. North Korea’s actions were neither admirable nor defensible. But they were also not infantile. Pyongyang wants to be acknowledged as a member of the adults-only nuclear club. It bridles at any attempt to restrict its sovereign desire to test its missile program. And it takes exception to both economic sanctions and joint U.S.-ROK military maneuvers near its borders. The response to all this was decidedly intemperate. But it was neither irrational nor inexplicable. It should also be noted that babies don’t build nuclear programs or engage in large-scale human rights violations. Herein lies the real problem with the North-Korea-as-baby metaphor. By treating North Korea as a largely irrational force, pundits fall into the mistake of portraying the “parental units” (United States, South Korea, China) as overly permissive. When the Obama administration was considering a modest food aid package for North Korea, five Republican senators were quick to trot out the standard line that Obama was the appeaser-in-chief (to use Rick Santorum’s line). Any hint of diplomacy produces charges of coddling. An entire class of pundit has staked out its place in the policy world by, in essence, accusing not only Obama but various other governments of sparing the rod and spoiling the child. One of the more intriguing — and misguided — contributions to this literature is Reagan-era militarist Edward Luttwak’s recent post in Foreign Policy. South Korea is the enabler, he argues, and that’s why all the adult supervision offered by other governments has failed. “The price of continued U.S. protection should be the adoption of a serious defense policy, the closure of the Kaesong racket, and a complete end to cash transfers to the North, whatever the excuse,” he concludes. This analysis is inaccurate on so many levels. South Korea hasn’t offered cash handouts to North Korea for more than five years. It embarked on a major military modernization even during its era of greatest engagement with Pyongyang. And the Kaesong Industrial Complex, rather than being a racket, has been the only mechanism of bringing North Korea into the global economy and, at the same time, raising the standard of living of more than 50,000 North Koreans and their families. If Luttwak had published this piece during the Kim Dae Jung era, it arguably would have been somewhere in the ballpark but still seriously off-base. These days, after five years of the Lee Myung Bak administration, South Korea has been in serious non-enabling mode. The third in the supposed trio of appeasers is China, portrayed as an indulgent authority figure who sneaks treats to little North Korea on the side. Target China, many have urged, and even Secretary of State John Kerry has visited Beijing on this mission. But here too the metaphor doesn’t work. North Korea is not subordinate to China (though it is dependent on Chinese energy and food). North Korea rejects Chinese influence out of pride and a fear of greater dependency. And China has its own reasons for providing this assistance — ensuring stability on its border, for instance — which have nothing to do with having a sweet spot for North Korea’s system. Engaging North Korea — economically, politically, culturally — emerges from this metaphoric understanding of North Korea-as-infant as something between ignorance of the world’s realities and an almost criminal lack of discipline. If North Korea is still banging its spoon on the table, there’s no point in treating it like an equal — in other words, as a state with its own national interests and sovereign concerns. Worse, engagement comes across as endorsing, perhaps even encouraging bad behavior. But negotiating with North Korean in no way implies agreement with its system, its actions, or its rhetoric. And the evidence of negotiations past suggests that North Korea generally acts more peaceably when it’s engaged in these diplomatic endeavors rather than consigned to the “time-out” corner. Metaphors serve as convenient shorthand to condense and enliven our language. But when metaphors get in the way of developing reasonable policies, they should be abandoned. Treating North Korea as a spoiled child is not an accurate description of Pyongyang’s behavior. It prevents us from understanding how our own actions contribute to the crisis, when we are for instance as stubborn as donkeys, as rule-breaking as scofflaws, and as inscrutable as infants. And it generates a false dichotomy — sweets versus sanctions — in terms of policy options. It’s time for us to grow up in our assessments of North Korea. Belittling North Korea, literally and figuratively, ultimately prevents us from developing our own mature alternatives. *John Feffer, an Open Society Fellow, is co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus (www.fpif.org) at the Institute for Policy Studies. His articles and books can be found at www.johnfeffer.com. His latest book is Crusade 2.0 (City Lights, 2012). #JohnFeffer

Christine Ahn* | July 27, 2013 [Originally published in Common Dreams, July 26, 2013] Sixty years ago today, the United States, North Korea and China sat down to sign the Korean Armistice Agreement to “insure a complete cessation of hostilities.” Several provisions were to guarantee a peaceful settlement, including a permanent peace agreement, withdrawal of all foreign troops, and no new arms introduced into Korea. Six decades later, none of these have been honored. As such, war, not peace, defines the relationship between Washington and Pyongyang. Official commemorations are now taking place throughout Korea and United States, mostly honoring veterans who sacrificed their lives to fight the Forgotten War. Missing from this sanctioned remembering are the nearly four million Korean, mostly civilian, lives lost in just three years. Also missing is the central question: what are the costs of maintaining division and a permanent state of war? The costs are indeed enormous. The most obvious is the threat of war, which would result in 1.5 million casualties within the first 24 hours, according to 1994 Defense Department estimates, well before North Korea possessed nuclear weapons. We came dangerously close this spring after Washington responded to Pyongyang’s satellite launch and nuclear weapon test with another round of UN sanctions, followed by nuclear capable B-2 stealth bombers and nuclear power submarines equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles. Washington was “within an inch of war almost every day,” said former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. Another major casualty are the millions of families separated by the DMZ, who by no choice of their own, are unable to see, embrace or communicate with their loved ones. Unending war means bolstering up militaries to prepare for war. In 2012, the United States spent nearly $665 billion on its military, South Korea $32 billion, and North Korea $6 billion. North Korea recently acknowledged how they had “to divert large human and material resources to bolstering up the armed forces though they should have been directed to the economic development and improvement of people’s living standard.” North Koreans are also struggling with food and energy shortages because of another weapon of war: U.S.-led sanctions, which have for the past 60 years had deleterious effects on the daily life of North Koreans. On his last trip to North Korea, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter remarked how “sanctions have deprived the North Korean people from adequate access to trade and commerce which has been devastating to their economy” and that “the people suffer the most and the leaders suffer the least.” The costs are also of repression on both sides of the DMZ in the name of national security. Every government, including the United States, justifies violating human rights on the grounds of national security, whether it is the NSA’s spying program or systematic torture of prisoners at Guantanamo. We often point to North Korea’s prison camps, but rarely do we critique South Korea’s antiquated Cold War-era National Security Law, which is still used to silence and imprison political dissidents. The partition, however, has very real consequences for North Korean women who make up the majority of migrants leaving North Korea due to poverty and hunger. According to estimates by aid workers, 80 to 90 percent of North Korean female refugees are trafficked and survivors of sexual violence. One 19-year old North Korean woman recently shared among a circle of women her experience of being raped four times during her journey to Seoul: once by the Korean-Chinese man who promised her work; twice by a Chinese man who hid her from authorities; third by a South Korean man who smuggled her into Seoul; and a fourth time by a South Korean agent. The Korean War lives on. For six decades, the Korean peninsula has been marked by tragedy and war, a pawn on a global chessboard determining its fate. Yet much of this human suffering could be resolved through one action: replace the armistice with a peace treaty. In June, Pyongyang requested direct talks with Washington, but the Obama administration has not yet responded, even though there is a wide political spectrum of U.S. voices calling for peace with North Korea, including former U.S. ambassadors to South Korea from both political parties. In Korean culture, 60 years represents an entire lifetime. It’s time to end 60 years of war and hostility and begin a new lifetime of peace, reconciliation, and hopefully, reunification. Central is replacing the Korean Armistice Agreement with a permanent peace treaty. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License *Christine Ahn is a founding board member of the Korea Policy Institute and the National Campaign to End the Korean War. #Armistice #ChristineAhn #KoreanWar

A July 27th rally in Seoul for a peace treaty and against KCIA intervention in domestic politics. I was in Seoul during the July 27 commemorations of the 60th anniversary of the armistice agreement that brought an end to the fighting in the Korean War, one of the most brutal conflicts of the 20th century. My visit was hosted by the Unified Progressive Party, a coalition of peace, labor and civil liberties activists that holds six seats in South Korea’s National Assembly. On July 26, its Progressive Policy Institute sponsored an international symposium on “concluding a peace treaty on the Korean peninsula,” with participation from activists and writers from South Korea, Japan and China as well as the United States and Canada. I was proud to be among the three Americans invited to the event. The others were Gregory Elich, a foreign policy analyst affiliated, as I am, with the Korea Policy Institute (see his Counterpunch article on North Korea) and Hyun Lee, a Korean-American activist with the community organization Nodutdol in New York City (she produces radio shows for Asia Pacific Forum on WBAI.) I want to thank the organizers of the symposium, particularly Kyoung-Soon Park, the vice president of the institute, and Je-Jun Soo of the Korean Alliance for Progressive Movements. Here’s a report on my visit — my first to Seoul since August 2001: The highlight was a trip to the DMZ, the border area which I first saw as a boy in 1961, The day I was there it was extremely hot and humid, but hundreds of people came out to mourn Korea’s division and express their hopes for a unified and peaceful future. That day our delegation also participated in two demonstrations in downtown Seoul. In the afternoon, we marched and rallied for peace in front of the Yongsan Garrison, the huge U.S. military headquarters in Seoul (where I went to 4th grade in a U.S. Department of Defense school). In a speech that was well-received by the audience (I channeled John Lennon with “Power to the People, Right on!”) I spoke out against U.S. policy and for a peace agreement. You can see parts of my speech at about 2:15 in this clip. That evening, about 25,000 people — including a few Americans — attended a very moving and colorful rally at the main Seoul Plaza to protest South Korea’s intelligence agency’s intervention in domestic politics, a major issue in South Korea today (sound familiar?). One of the speakers was a housewife who created a website on politics critical of the South Korean government. She has sued the KCIA (which has been renamed the National Intelligence Agency) for its sleazy tactic of using social media to viciously undermine opposition voices. At one point, she received postings with pictures of her 10 year-old daughter threatening her with rape and worse. These abusive tactics have become a powerful issue, and the people are fighting back. The other highlight was a tour, led by our Korean hosts, of two important symbols of South Korea’s path from a Japanese colony to a democratic nation — albeit with lingering signs of authoritarianism. They were the Seodaemun Prison, where the Japanese colonial authorities held Korean independence fighters and South Korea’s postwar military governments imprisoned democratic activists; and the War & Women’s Human Rights Museum, a tribute to the sex slaves (known in Asia as “comfort women”) kidnapped and imprisoned by the Japanese Army during World War II. Many of the exhibits and photos at the prison were difficult to see, particularly those showing the Japanese use of water torture — a practice that the U.S. government and the CIA shamefully adopted during the “war on terror.” The women’s museum includes incredibly realistic animation of the experiences of the sex slaves at Japanese military bases scattered around the Pacific (the victims also included women from the Philippines and Holland). It was tremendously inspiring to see the photos and testimony of the brave Korean women who came forward to tell the stories of the comfort women in the 1980s, when the veil was first lifted on this terrible story of human trafficking. It’s unbelievable and shocking that the Japanese government continues to deny these crimes, and that prominent politicians there downplay and even ridicule the accounts of those who suffered. (click here for an excellent historical analysis of these museums). AFTER THE WAR, A “SMOULDERING RUIN” Before describing the details of my visit and the reasons so many of us believe a peace treaty is critical to peace in Korea, it’s important to remember the horror of the Korean War. I lived in South Korea from 1959 to 1961, when my father was working for a church relief organization, and I have strong memories of its impact on the south — hills denuded of trees, thousands of widows and orphans, vivid stories of families fleeing the fighting and split by the division, a polarized and repressed society. Here’s what David Carter, a British journalist and historian in Korea, wrote about the war in 2010 in Contemporary Review: [The Korean War] was a total disaster for the entire Korean peninsula. The historian Bruce Cumings has described the effects in shocking and gruesome detail: the entire country was a “smouldering ruin,” hardly a building was left standing anywhere, and the capital, Seoul, presented a nightmarish landscape with hollow shells of buildings as far as the eye could see…Cities everywhere, including also the northern capital of Pyongyang, were piles of rubble and ashes. People were living in tunnels, caves and makeshift shacks: they had to start rebuilding their lives using only the refuse of war. In the War Memorial Museum in Seoul you can walk between life-size dioramas of cityscapes wasted by the war, which make it difficult to re-enter the normal world outside with an easy conscience. About a tenth, three million, of the entire population of Korea at the outbreak of the war, had been wounded, killed, or were missing; ten million Koreans were wandering around disorientated, separated from other members of their families.Virtually all industry, North and South, had been destroyed, dams had been blasted and the already devastated landscape inundated. The gruesome toll of the dead includes three million Koreans, 186,000 Chinese and 38,000 Americans (as I reported in The Nation this week, President Obama had the audacity and arrogance to call the war a “victory,” reviving a right-wing trope that has long been discredited by historians). And in their generally terrible reporting on North Korea, U.S. journalists rarely mention the incredible destruction wrought on the North by the U.S. terror bombing campaign – click here and here for two well-documented accounts of these actions, which left North Korea, quite literally, in cinders. THE PEACE SYMPOSIUM Today, of course, Korea remains bitterly divided, and the clouds of war are still present. North Korea, which is committed to a military-first policy known as “song-gun,” has built and tested several nuclear weapons, and the U.S. and South Korea regularly hold massive military exercises where they practice nuclear strikes on the North and even stage mock run-throughs of regime change. As I wrote in Salon during the most recent “North Korea Crisis” in April, the Obama administration’s refusal to negotiate with North Korea at any level has exacerbated the situation. At the symposium, the dire situation was summarized by Jung-Hee Lee, a lawyer and feminist activist and chairperson of the UPP who ran for president in 2012: Sixty years have passed since the armistice agreement was signed by Korea is still at war. The two military drills, so called Foal Eagle and Key Resolve, that were carried out in the spring of this year pushed the Korean peninsula into a serious nuclear crisis. A large number of nuclear weapons such as the U.S. nuclear-capable B-52 and B-2, and nuclear aircraft carrier Nimitz were deployed on and around the Korean Peninsula. North Korea forward-deployed its missiles as well. As such, the potential for military confrontation has reached its climax. We could learn from these experiences that peace cannot be attained in an unstable environment under the armistice agreement. We need to declare an end to the war and conclude a peace treaty on the Korean Peninsula immediately. Our challenge is to create a stable peace system now. One of the best things about the conference was the participation by a large group of Japanese peace activists. They were there in part to protest the role of the Japanese government, the most conservative since World War II, in the ongoing tensions in Korea and particularly in the U.S. military buildup in Asia. Hottori Ryoichi, who was until last year a member of the Japanese House of Representatives from Osaka, offered a withering critique of Japanese policy. He started out by reminding the audience what the Korean War meant to Japan – primarily that it was “not possible without the Japanese military bases” controlled by the United States, and that Japanese sales of vehicles and munitions to U.S. forces in Korea helped revive the postwar Japanese economy. “That ‘special demand’ from the Korean War was only made possible by the Korean peoples’ blood,” he said. Hattori denounced Shinzo Abe’s new LDP government, which is desperately seeking to change Japan’s peace constitution so it can participate in America’s global wars (and, not suprisingly, join the lucrative export of weapons). “The Abe government is not even conservative; it’s an ultra-rightwing regime,” he said. “Overturning Abe would directly contribute to peace. His followers want to revive the Emperor’s Army.” He added that “to abandon the peace constitution would be unforgiveable to people around the world.” (Later, Byung-Ryul Min, a member of the UPP’s supreme council, declared that “the logic of Japan in 1941 was not that different from today’s ruling conservatives.”) “A new era of the Cold War has come upon us,” added Watanabe Kenji, the chairperson of the Japan-Korea Peoples’ Solidarity National Network and a historian on Japanese militarism. He described how Japan is trying to “revise and distort history” with false accounts of the comfort women and by claiming “ownership” of islands claimed by Korea and China. He slammed recent joint military exercises held by the U.S. and South Korea as “provocations themselves,” and noted that the 1953 armistice agreement stipulated that, within three months, all foreign forces were supposed to be withdrawn. “The Korean War must end to achieve a permanent peace in Korean and Northeast Asia,” he concluded. “We now have a vicious cycle were no one trusts the other parties. We must give North Korea assurances against military provocations.” Other Japanese speakers linked the struggle against militarism to the ongoing battles to remove U.S. forces from Okinawa and stop South Korea from constructing a naval base in the southern island of Jeju (a movement recently joined by movie director Oliver Stone). KOREANS REMEMBER THE “SUNSHINE POLICIES” OF KIM DAE JUNG The strongest arguments for an end to the war came from the Koreans themselves. Je Jun Joo of the Korean Alliance and a key figure in the movement against the Korea-U.S. Trade Agreement, summed up the costs of the war build-up to the Korean economy. The defense budget of South Korea this year is about 35 trillion won (about $35 billion), which is about 15 percent of the whole countrys’ budget for a year…If the salaries of South Korea’s 600,000 soldiers were included in the budget, defense spending would easily place South Korea in the top five of the world. What we should also know is the fact that the ratio of importing foreign weapons is dramatically getting higher. In 2011, it exceeded one-third of the defense budget and was close to 30 percent of the arms exported by the United States. It is so clear who makes profits from the situation on the Korean peninsula. Joo also offered a sobering overview of the military exercises that North Korea claims its nuclear deterrence is aimed at. These exercises, also known as “Team Spirit,” “Ulchi Focus Lens,” “Key Resolve,” and “Ulchi Freedom Guardian,” have taken place for decades to practice attacking North Korea. And about 50,000 to 200,000 forces are currently mobilized for these exercises. On top of this, South Korea and the United States have established operational plans including “destroying the North Korean structure,” “North Korea leader assassination operations,” and “preemptive attack against North Korea’s major facilities,” OPLAN 5027 (Total War), OPLAN 50230 (psychological warfare against North Korea). As you can see, it same hard to realize such ideas as “mutual equality,” “realizing peace,” or “solving the problem by having conversations,” in this peninsula. That, of course, is a direct shot at the Obama administration, which defends its Asia policies, including its massive shift of military resources to the Pacific, as a giant peace-keeping operation. Koreans at the conference and in general are already fed up with Obama’s hardline policies towards the North and his warm embrace of South Korea’s conservative presidents, including the current leader, Park Geun-hye, the daughter of the former dictator Park Chung Hee, and Lee Myung Bak, the right-wing Hyundai executive who preceded her and under whose reign tensions with the North rose to record levels (to their disgust, Obama, who got along famously with Lee, once called him “his favorite president.”) In their minds, one of the most important steps to peace would be the dismantling of the U.S.-Korean Joint Command, led by a U.S. general. As I said in my speech to the conference, South Korea is the only country in the world in which a foreign general is in command of its army at times of war. The UPP and much of the popular movement also want to see the withdrawal of the 28,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea. “Voters here have to make that decision to drive U.S. forces out of Korea,” said Park, the institute’s vice president. During the demonstration at Yongsan, the crowds chanted for U.S. troops to get out. Such open displays of antipathy towards the American military would have been unheard of during South Korea’s dictatorial past, which lasted from 1945 to 1988. Another demand is a return to the more conciliatory policies that dominated during the presidencies of Kim Dae Jung and Roh Moo Hyun, roughly from 1998 to 2006. During that time, extensive agreements were made with North Korea (then led by the first hereditary dictator, Kim Jong Ill) on cultural, sports, education and political exchanges. Major projects included a railway linking North and South (it was even blessed by George Bush in a 2003 visit), and a joint industrial zone established in Kaesong, just north of the DMZ (the same one that North Korea shut down in April and has been the subject of recent negotiations between Seoul and Pyongyang). I heard stories of the fruits of this rapprochement from my friends, including a specialist in nano-technology who was involved in joint seminars organized by top North and South Korean universities. One UPP activist told me how, on one trip, he was even allowed to drive his own car through the checkpoints at the DMZ all the way to Pyongyang. Looking at the border today, that seemed like a faraway dream. Min of the UPP, which has extensive political ties in Japan and China, laid out in detail some of the political exchanges that took place during the “Sunshine policy” years. His contact in North Korea, he said, was not Kim Jong Il’s ruling (in the absolute sense) communist party, but the North Korean Social Democratic Party. The UPP, he said, had working group-level talks with the North Korean Social Democrats in 2004, then “made an official visit to Pyongyang and had an official meeting among delegations from both sides between August 22 to 27, 2005. The second bipartisan talks were held between November 15 to 19, 2008. The working group contacts were in progress until 2009. Unfortunately, the current inter-Korean relation is at an impasse and is blocking further inter-party exchanges.” As one friend of mine put it, “when Lee Myung Bak came into office, everything stopped.” As Gregory Elich pointed out, South Korea’s rightward turn is a blessing for the Pentagon and the U.S. national security elite. “South Korea’s geostrategic importance to the U.S. means that if the expression of popular will is strong enough, it may be difficult to ignore,” he said. “In the years ahead, if a more progressive government comes to power in South Korea, the United States may not be able to exclude a peace treaty from a denuclearization settlement, nor indeed to say no to engagement in the first place.” US ELITES VS THE KOREAN PEOPLE Elich quoted from a revealing report published by the Center for a New American Security, the corporate/contractor-funded think-tank of Washington’s global counterinsurgency warriors. It complained bitterly about the South Korean left and its ability to mobilize thousands of people in the movement against the U.S.-South Korean military alliance. A key “challenge for the [military] alliance,” the paper states, “relates to managing populist fervor in Korea.” (coming from Bush and Obama foreign policy hacks Victor Cha and Kurt Campbell, that’s not surprising; but the report is truly astonishing in its triumphalism and complete arrogance towards the Korean people — read it here). My take on Korea and its relationship with the United States is very much along the lines expressed at the symposium. In my speech, I was extremely critical of Obama’s policies, but also focused on the failure of the U.S. press to report either objectively or accurately about Korea, North and South. But I reserved much of my critique to the U.S. left – of which I am a part. It seems to me that after the Vietnam War, which the left fiercely opposed, American progressives basically forgot about Asia. Worse, progressives have, with rare exceptions (Oliver Stone, Code Pink), treated the South Korean movement for democracy with disdain and even contempt. Here’s part of what I said: Unfortunately, many Americans who should be our allies in building peace in Korea have adopted Cold War thinking as well. This is especially true of the press, which — as I’ve said — always portrays North Korea as the evil instigator and rarely mentions how U.S. policies, including threats to use nuclear weapons against the DPRK, have contributed to the tensions. But it’s also true of progressives as well. Many of you fought against the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement known as KORUS. You correctly saw KORUS as a treaty that will make it easier for capital to move across borders and hurt the interests of workers, unions, farmers and consumers. This view is shared by many U.S. trade unionists as well. But the organization that led the fight against KORUS and is in the forefront of the fight against TPP seized on only one issue: the Kaesong Free Trade Zone (that, ironically, is about to reopen). In its literature and campaigns, this U.S. organization argued that Kaesong is a “slave labor” camp that will finance North Korea’s acquisition of nuclear weapons, and therefore its inclusion in KORUS had to be opposed. This Cold War, simplistic view put this organization and many U.S. trade unions to the right of the most extreme elements of the Republican Party and far to the right even of the Korean conservative presidents Lee and Park. Worse, it completely denies South Korea’s sovereign right to reduce tensions and build economic ties with North Korea on its own terms. With “friends” like this, you do not need enemies. I would encourage progressive Americans to heed my words and find out for yourselves what South Koreans have to say about North Korea, their hopes for a more democratic society, and the U.S. role in their country. We should assist our counterparts in South Korea pressure the Obama administration to change its policies away from war and towards peace. As a singer at one of the protests sang — inspiring my own quotations from John Lennon — “Imagine.” Imagine a less militaristic America. Imagine a North Korea without nukes and a South Korea without foreign troops on its soil (yes, we’re the only ones). Imagine a peaceful Korea. Imagine an eventually united Korea. It could be done. *Tim Shorrock, a KPI Fellow, writer and trade unionist based in Washington, is the author of SPIES FOR HIRE: The Secret World of Outsourced Intelligence (Simon & Schuster/2008). He grew up in Japan and South Korea and has been writing about the U.S. role in Asia since the late 1970s. Much of his work, including his stories and documents on Kwangju, can be found at his website, http://www.timshorrock.com. He is also an avid poster on Twitter. #Armistice #SouthKorea #TimShorrock

Terry K. Park* | August 13, 2013 Dennis Rodman with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. At a discussion organized by Asia Society New York in July entitled “‘Avoiding Apocalypse’: Searching for Peace with North Korea,” former ambassador to the Republic of Korea Donald Gregg and former Governor of New Mexico Bill Richardson suggested that the Obama administration actively engage the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), or North Korea. “Isolation is not working,” said Richardson, who visited the DPRK in January with former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. “What we need is out-of-the-box diplomacy.” Amid current diplomatic tensions between North Korea and the United States is Kenneth Bae, a U.S. citizen and evangelical Christian currently serving a fifteen year sentence in a labor camp on charges of trying to overthrow the North Korean government. On how best to secure Bae’s release, Richardson commented, “I think it’s going to be something unorthodox, but hopefully it will be resolved, because this man deserves to come home.” Out of the box? Unorthodox? Cue Dennis Rodman. The sequined celebrity announced last Saturday at the Wizard World Comic Con near Chicago, where he promoted his new children’s book Dennis the Wild Bull, that he intends to return to Pyongyang “soon” to seek Bae’s release and reunite with his new friend, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. “I love him,” declared Rodman after his first trip six months ago. “That guy’s awesome.” Those words of affection flabbergasted a home audience shocked by images of Rodman cozying up with Kim at a basketball game featuring members of the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team. Politicians, pundits, and bloggers ripped Rodman apart; on an ABC interview, George Stephanopoulos accused him of propping up a government that has threatened to destroy the United States and imprisons much of its own population. Rodman defended his actions, bringing a message of peace—not war—from Kim himself. It didn’t matter, though. Head-butting an NBA referee is one thing, but when he befriended the hated leader of a hated country, Americans felt like Rodman had head-butted their national pride. “Stay in North Korea,” screamed bulletin-board comments. “Traitor” shouted others. America’s “Bad Boy” just got badder. Rodman, however, had flouted convention long before he stepped off the Air Koryo plane in Pyongyang. The cross-dressing, multi-colored hair-dyeing, pink boa-wearing, Pearl Jam-listening, pierced-and-tattooed black male athlete gained notoriety during and after his colorful basketball career for rebelling against prescribed racial, gender, and sexual norms. Even the way he entered the Basketball Hall of Fame went against convention. Instead of scoring, “The Worm” rebounded and defended his way into the hallowed halls of Springfield. In short, Rodman is an enigma, a mystery, a blank space on the map of legibility, taking pride in his Mad Hatter-ability to befuddle and frustrate. Sound familiar? North Korea is in many ways the Dennis Rodman of the international community. Its hyperbolic statements are routinely and ahistorically interpreted as the mutterings of a mad man rather than a rational actor with limited resources, few allies, and a historical memory that stretches as long as the 150-mile long demilitarized zone. But there is another, less-perceptible, yet nonetheless resonant dimension to the discomfort caused by the Rodman-DPRK pairing—the relatively-unknown legacy of Black American radicals aligning with North Korea. It started in the immediate aftermath of the Korean War, when Clarence Adams, William C. White, and LaRance Sullivan, three Black American prisoners of war during the Korean War, refused repatriation to the United States. Instead, they defected with nineteen other American soldiers to China. In his memoir, Adams recounts his politicization by his Chinese captors in a North Korean POW camp and his eventual decision to live in China, which, at the time, was the only place where he thought he could be “treated as a human being.” This legacy continued with the Black Panther Party’s (BPP) open admiration of Juche, the North Korean ideology embracing sovereignty and independence. Benjamin R. Young wrote an article for NKNews.org in December 2012 based on his master’s thesis research on the BPP’s “secret North Korean fetish.” In the article, Young describes a visit to North Korea in 1969 by Eldridge Cleaver, a former leader and co-founder of the BPP and BPP deputy minister of defense Byron Booth, both of whom served as delegates to the eight-day World Conference of Anti-Imperialist Journalists. After the visit, the BPP’s official newspaper stated: “After careful investigation on the international scene, it is our considered opinion that it is none other than Comrade Kim Il Sung who is brilliantly providing the most profound Marxist-Leninist analysis, strategy, and tactical method for the total destruction of imperialism and the liberation of the oppressed peoples in our time.” So decades before Rodman expressed affection and admiration for Kim Jong Un, the Black Panthers looked to his grandfather for ideological guidance. The relationship between the BPP and North Korea was so close that Cleaver, who later wrote the foreword to an English-language anthology on the speeches and writings of Kim Il Sung, sent his wife, Kathleen, to Pyongyang in 1970 to receive medical care. There she gave birth to a baby girl, Joju Younghi. Of course, there is nothing to suggest that Rodman is a Black radical in the mold of Eldridge or Kathleen Cleaver. It’s pretty clear at this point that Rodman is primarily interested in promoting himself and not in “the liberation of the oppressed peoples in our time.” But as scholars like Vijay Prashad have noted, there is a long and rich history of anti-imperial Black and Asian solidarity, one that found popular expression in Malcolm X’s speeches on the subject, in Muhammed Ali’s famous pronouncement of “Man, I ain’t got no quarrel with them Vietcong,” in the National Liberation Front’s self-designation as “Yellow Panthers,” and in the martial arts films of Bruce Lee. So the sight of a Black man, already viewed as a traitor to racial, gender, and sexual norms in the U.S., sitting next to the leader of one-third of the Axis of Evil, drew from and added to this long-running fear of a Black-Asian alliance. Perhaps Richardson recognized this affinity between Rodman and North Korea when he said that Rodman might be the only person who can secure Bae’s release. Not Jimmy Carter. Not Bill Clinton. Dennis Rodman. Does this sound ridiculous? The fact that today, an attention-seeking basketball player-turned-reality television star might be the best U.S. representative to secure the release of a captive American citizen and ease tensions between Pyongyang and Washington, between Kim and Obama? Rodman thinks so. “I’m not a diplomat, man, I’m just trying to go over there,” he told TMZ. “But I’m going to do one thing for you. We got a black president can’t even go talk to him, how about that one? … I’ll put it like this, Obama can’t do s**t. I don’t know why he won’t do it. So do that bulls**t.” Richardson and Gregg share Rodman’s frustration with the Obama administration. Obama publicly pledged during his first presidential campaign that he would engage with the U.S.’s historic enemies. And yet, five years later, after coming close to war with North Korea, Obama still refuses to speak with North Korea who in June officially requested direct talks with Washington. Meanwhile, tensions over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and joint U.S.-South Korea war games continue to escalate, threatening peace and stability on the Korean peninsula. The real diplomats, however, refuse to engage in diplomacy by negotiating directly with Pyongyang, which has repeatedly and consistently asked to replace the sixty year-old armistice agreement with a peace treaty to finally end the Korean War. Only then, Carter, Gregg and other diplomats and scholars across the political spectrum argue, can North Korea feel secure without having to arm itself. Until then, we’re left with Rodman’s basketball diplomacy. And that’s ridiculous. *Terry K. Park (terrykpark.com) is a Provost’s Dissertation Fellow and PhD Candidate in the Cultural Studies Graduate Group at the University of California Davis. #KimJongUn #DennisRodman #diplomacy #TerryPark #NorthKorea

Gregory Elich* | August 22, 2013 [Originally published on Counterpunch.org, August 19, 2013] South Koreans gather at Imjingak near the DMZ in July 2013 to call for a peace treaty (photo: timshorrock.com). Sixty years have passed since the end of the Korean War, and in all that time a peace treaty has yet to be signed. The armistice agreement that brought an end to hostilities recommended that a political conference be held within three months “to settle through negotiation the question of the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Korea, the peaceful settlement of the Korean question, etc.” That conference never took place. Decades later, the sides still remain technically at war. Activists in South Korea have made the signing of a peace treaty one of their primary goals, seeing it as the surest means of reducing the risk of armed conflict. A peace treaty would also substantially reduce tensions in Northeast Asia and create an environment conducive to improving inter-Korean relations. By any human evaluation, the time for a peace treaty is long overdue. The United States not only has the central role to play in the peace treaty process, it also presents the greatest challenge to its achievement. Although a peace treaty would serve the interests of the peoples of Northeast Asia, it has little or no intrinsic value for U.S. leaders. From their standpoint, a peace treaty has value only as a carrot to be dangled before North Korea in order to encourage denuclearization. Indeed, from the standpoint of U.S. geopolitical interests, there are certain advantages in maintaining a state of tension on the Korean Peninsula, as long as events can be controlled. No progress can be made toward a peace treaty unless negotiations take place, and U.S. and South Korean leaders present a consistent message, saying that talks cannot take place unless North Korea first begins to denuclearize. In essence, this is a way of ruling out dialogue altogether. It is difficult to see what North Korea would have to gain from talks in which it must first meet American end objectives before discussion could proceed on what, if anything, the United States might be willing to offer in return. The United States and South Korea demand the unilateral implementation by North Korea of its obligations under the Joint Agreement of September 19, 2005 as the precondition for talks. Meanwhile, the U.S. has not executed its obligations under the agreement, the most important of which is the promise to take steps to normalize relations. Indeed, the United States undermined the agreement within days of its signing. The U.S. Treasury Department instructed American banks to sever relations with Banco Delta Asia, an institution in which North Korea held accounts that it used in foreign commerce. The Treasury Department sent letters to banks across the world, warning them not to conduct business with the bank, an action which resulted in a run on reserves and a freeze on North Korean accounts. Those accounts were eventually unfrozen as North Korea’s condition for joining the next stage of Six-Party talks. Since that time, however, relations have only gotten worse. No meaningful dialogue has taken place since Obama took office, and the U.S. continues to pile more sanctions upon North Korea. The U.S. has sanctioned, and pressured other nations to sanction, North Korea’s Foreign Trade Bank, that nation’s primary conduit for financing foreign trade. In discussions with Chinese officials, U.S. diplomats threatened to boost the American military presence in Asia if China did not sanction the Foreign Trade Bank. The United States has also slapped sanctions on the Daedong Credit Bank, and American officials have promised to squeeze North Korea through additional sanctions in the months ahead. We are at an impasse. The Obama Administration will not talk with North Korea until it starts to denuclearize without getting anything in return. From the North Korean perspective, it cannot dismantle its nuclear program as long as the U.S. maintains a hostile policy. Clearly, a step-by-step approach is called for, but as far as the Obama Administration is concerned, that option is off the table. With talks on denuclearization seemingly blocked, the prospect of a peace treaty is even less encouraging at this time. In the present circumstances it appears that there are only two possible paths to the United States signing a peace treaty or agreeing to the establishment of a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula. A peace treaty could be included as one of the steps in a negotiated denuclearization process arrived at in Six-Party talks, assuming that a way can be found to end the Obama Administration’s refusal to negotiate. The other path is if sanctions succeed in bringing about the collapse of North Korea, and peace is established on U.S. terms. It is important to note that the inclusion of the promise of a peace treaty in a denuclearization agreement is no guarantee of its actual implementation. One of the motifs in the Six-Party talks was that the U.S. front-loaded obligations on North Korea while committing only to discuss issues after those steps had been implemented. When the United States agreed to later discussion of issues of concern to North Korea, this did not necessarily mean that it would ultimately agree to their implementation. One former South Korean negotiator recalled how his American counterparts asked his delegation to present a tough front, in order to make U.S. offers to North Korea appear more attractive in contrast. In subsequent discussions with American officials, the South Korean negotiator discovered that the commitment to carry out those offers was lacking. “How could I guarantee that my side would be a bad and tough cop, when the other side cannot be counted on to be a reliably good cop?” he wondered.1 Similarly, just two weeks after the United States signed the September 2005 Joint Agreement, which obligated it to take steps to normalize relations with North Korea, U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill spoke before Congress. Normalization of relations, he explained, would be “subject to resolution of our longstanding concerns. By this I meant that as a necessary part of the process leading to normalization, we must discuss important issues, including human rights, biological and chemical weapons, ballistic missile programs, proliferation of conventional weapons, terrorism and other illicit activities.” North Korea “would have to commit to international standards across the board, and then prove its intentions.”2 In other words, even if North Korea were to fully denuclearize, relations would still not move toward normalization. North Korea would only be faced with a host of additional demands. It can be expected that a peace treaty would face the same barriers. The United States could promise to discuss the subject after denuclearization and then when the time comes, use other issues to justify the refusal to sign a treaty. Even if a treaty is implemented one day, a peace treaty is not the same thing as normalization of relations. Aside from regime change, there is no conceivable scenario in which the United States would agree to normalization of relations. If the North Korean economy does not offer a welcoming environment for U.S. investors, then U.S. policy will not change. Cuba is a relevant example of a nation at peace with the U.S., yet subject to unrelenting U.S. hostility. If, despite all obstacles, a peace treaty is signed one day, it is unlikely to alter the U.S.-South Korean military alliance. American policymakers are already implementing plans to change the alliance in ways that are unrelated to the situation on the Korean Peninsula, and that process will continue regardless of any agreement that may be reached with North Korea. There is something of a precedent. More than two decades after German reunification and the end of the Cold War, U.S. military forces remain stationed in Germany and NATO has transformed itself from an ostensibly defensive organization into one that conducts offensive out-of-area operations. American officials have made it plain that the U.S.-South Korean military alliance should serve a broader purpose beyond the Korean Peninsula. They point to South Korea’s supporting role in Iraq and Afghanistan as models for the future of the alliance, and suggest that deeper involvement in U.S. operations is expected in the future. According to the Center for U.S.-Korea Policy, “The crafters of the alliance must constantly push themselves to forge areas of common cooperation that increasingly define the alliance outside of a peninsular context.”3 If South Korea is going to participate more fully in U.S. interventions, then an important component of the expanded alliance is to ensure the interoperability of weaponry, and along these lines South Korea is in the process of modernizing its arsenal. As Kevin Shepard, Deputy Director for US-ROK Combined Forces Command Strategy, put it in a presentation at the Brookings Institution, an upgrade in military technology “will facilitate future cooperation” and the “lack of these capabilities” results in “the inability for South Korea to fully participate as an equal partner on U.S.-led international efforts.”4 South Korea will have to work with NATO if it is going to increase its participation in U.S. interventions. It has joined NATO’s Individual Partnership Cooperation Program, which promotes “practical cooperation in a number of joint priority areas,” including what is euphemistically called “multinational peace support operations.”5 The agreement that South Korea signed with NATO has not been made public, but it is reasonable to suppose that its contents are similar to the Australia-NATO agreement. That agreement specifies that the partnership “aims to support NATO’s strategic objectives…by enhancing support for NATO’s operations and missions.” Listed among the agreement’s objectives is support for the Australian military’s “interoperability, deployability, and mobility to facilitate future participation in NATO exercises and operations.”6 Australia (and presumably South Korea as well) is to upgrade its arsenal so that it can fully participate in NATO military operations. Various policy institutes in Washington are working together with U.S. officials to outline the future of the alliance. A survey of government officials and policy analysts ranked the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) as the most important American think tank in the area of security and international affairs.7 Like most such institutes, its board is comprised primarily of former government officials who have considerable influence on the formation of policy. The CSIS not only influences and guides U.S. government policy. On occasion, its members take an active part in its execution. For example, CSIS senior advisor Bonnie Glaser was a member of the U.S. delegation that met with North Korean officials in a bilateral meeting in China in September 2012.8 “The time is ripe to establish a considerably more comprehensive alliance,” the CSIS asserts, and “an exclusive focus on peninsular security is a luxury South Korea can no longer afford.” Among other things, it argues that a restructured alliance would “serve as a visible constraint” against the Chinese. The U.S. military presence in Korea is crucial, the CSIS claims. “The U.S-ROK alliance, in combination with the U.S.-Japan alliance, allows the U.S. military to maintain a forward-deployed presence in Northeast Asia. The existence of parallel presence in both Japan and South Korea reduces political pressure on Japan that might develop if Japan were the only host of U.S. forces in Northeast Asia.”9 The U.S. Department of Defense commissioned the CSIS to produce a report offering recommendations regarding the U.S. military presence in the Asia-Pacific. The first finding listed in the report states, “Forward presence is critically important for protecting U.S. national security interests in the Asia Pacific region.” The United States “has an enduring interest in maintaining a favorable strategic equilibrium in the Asia Pacific region” that, among other things, “affords economic access.” To an increasing degree, “a robust forward U.S. military presence anchored in key alliances and partnerships is critical” to advancing U.S. interests.10 The key component in a restructured alliance is “strategic flexibility,” in which U.S. forces stationed in South Korea can freely intervene anywhere in Asia. Plans are in place for the U.S. 8th Army to be designated as a field army by 2017. That would allow it to command other U.S. and multinational forces, and its role would no longer be confined solely to the defense of South Korea. Its mission will become global.11 Whether or not a peace treaty is signed, the U.S. military has no intention of leaving the Korean Peninsula. The U.S. military presence in the region is a guarantee for American economic interests, helping to ensure the free flow of capital. A forward-based military presence combined with the soft power of free trade agreements ensures economic liberalization and, as the Foreign Policy Initiative explains, “increase[s] the access of American businesses and investors to foreign markets.”12 President Obama has vowed that the United States “will allocate the resources necessary to maintain our strong military presence” in Asia, and “we will preserve our ability to project power.” Because the Asia Pacific is “a top priority,” Obama continued, “reductions in U.S. defense spending will not – I repeat, will not – come at the expense of the Asia Pacific.” Instead, cutbacks are targeted at the federal workforce, with furloughs this year and the promise of layoffs next year. In Obama’s view, it is not the peoples of Asia who will have primary say over their affairs. “As a Pacific nation, the United States will play a larger and long-term role in shaping this region and its future.” The U.S. military presence is permanent, Obama emphasizes. “Our enduring interests in the region demand our enduring presence in the region. The United States is a Pacific power, and we are here to stay.”13 U.S. officials have no motivation to sign a peace treaty; it is not in their interests. A certain level of tension provides political cover for the broader purposes behind the U.S. military presence, and North Korea is the pretext for encircling China with an anti-ballistic missile system. However, South Korea’s geostrategic importance to the U.S. means that if the expression of popular will is strong enough, it may be difficult to ignore. In the years ahead, if a more progressive government comes to power in South Korea, the United States may not be able to exclude a peace treaty from a denuclearization settlement, nor indeed to say no to engagement in the first place. As the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) sees it, South Korea has an important subordinate role to play in the alliance: “America’s ability to maintain stability and project power in the Asian Pacific has long depended on its hub-and-spoke system of bilateral alliances. South Korea has been a valuable component of this system, serving as a regional hub of U.S. power, and projecting ‘spokes’ of U.S. influence across the region.” Even so, South Korea is not subservient enough, the CNAS argues, as its efforts “have not reached those of a full partner like the United Kingdom.” Therefore, “South Korea needs to examine this issue more closely as it plans its role in the future of the alliance” and come to the desired conclusion that “the South Korean military will need to expand its participation in joint and multilateral operations.” Along those lines, the CNAS says that South Korea’s modernization of weaponry should be aimed at acquiring “capabilities that are useful both for peninsular operations and for out-of-area operations.” South Korea has an important role to play in furthering U.S. hegemony, as the CNAS makes clear. “Korea’s overseas engagements can promote U.S. geopolitical interests in key countries and regions of shared strategic interest.” The interests of the South Korean people simply do not rate consideration for U.S. security analysts and policymakers, who are constitutionally incapable of regarding other nations as having any claim to sovereignty. American policymakers are keenly aware of South Korea’s history of popular democracy. The CNAS complains that “one of the most significant hurdles” to reconfiguring the U.S.-South Korea relationship into a global interventionist alliance “is domestic political opposition to the ROK’s involvement in overseas operations.” The CNAS is disdainful of what it terms “populist fervor in Korea.” The threat of street demonstrations must be overcome, it argues, in order to push through plans for a more global role for the alliance.14 It is that Korean democratic spirit that has the potential of compelling the U.S. to pay heed, to put a peace treaty on the agenda, and to give that treaty substance so that it does not become an empty gesture. It will prove a daunting task to dislodge the U.S. military from the Korean Peninsula. U.S. forces are not likely to go, even if the South Korean government demands it, given South Korea’s proximity to China. Popular resistance, however, could place constraints on the mission of the U.S. forces and block South Korea from joining U.S. military interventions. It would be too much to expect a peace treaty to diminish U.S. hostility toward North Korea. A peace treaty, though, would almost certainly bring about a normalization of relations between the two Koreas and launch them on the path to eventual reunification. In the process, tensions would be reduced. Koreans on both sides of the border would determine their shared future, regardless of U.S. opposition. Progressives in South Korea are calling upon organizations throughout the world to join them in international solidarity and make the struggle for a peace treaty on the Korean Peninsula a global effort. This article is based on a talk given by the author at the International Symposium on Concluding a Peace Treaty on the Korean Peninsula, in Seoul on July 26, 2013. * Gregory Elich is on the Board of Directors of the Jasenovac Research Institute and on the Advisory Board of the Korea Policy Institute. He is the author of the book Strange Liberators: Militarism, Mayhem, and the Pursuit of Profit. Notes James L. Schoff and Yaron Eisenberg, “Peace Regime Building on the Korean Peninsula: What Next?”, Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, May 2009. “The Six-Party Talks and the North Korean Nuclear Issue: Old Wine in New Bottles?”, Hearing Before the Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, October 6, 2005. Scott Snyder, “Strengthening the U.S.-ROK Alliance,” Center for U.S.-Korea Policy, The Asia Foundation, February 2009. “Opportunities for U.S.-ROK Alliance Cooperation: New Issues on the Agenda,” The Brookings Institution, Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies, October 8, 2009. “NATO and the Republic of Korea Sign a New Partnership Programme,” North Atlantic Treaty Organization, September 20, 2012. “Individual Partnership and Cooperation Programme between Australia and NATO,” February 21, 2013. “2012 Global Go To Think Tanks Report and Policy Advice,” Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program, International Relations Program, University of Pennsylvania, January 28, 2013. Josh Rogin, “North Korea Rebuffs U.S. at Secret Meeting in China,” Foreign Policy/The Cable, October 15, 2012. Scott Snyder, “Pursuing a Comprehensive Vision for the U.S.-South Korea Alliance,” Center for Strategic and International Studies,” April 2009. “U.S. Force Posture Strategy in the Asia Pacific Region: An Independent Assessment,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, June 27, 2012. Ashley Rowland, “U.S. Army in South Korea Begins Transformation of Forces,” Stars and Stripes, August 25, 2010. “Securing U.S. Interests and Values in the Asia-Pacific,” The Foreign Policy Initiative, The Asia-Pacific Strategy Working Group, June 4, 2013. Press Release, “Remarks by President Obama to the Australian Parliament,” The White House Office of the Press Secretary, November 17, 2011. Kurt M. Campbell, Victor D. Cha, Lindsey Ford, Kazuyo Kato, Nirav Patel, Randy Schriver, Vikram J. Singh, “Going Global: The Future of the U.S.-South Korea Alliance,” Center for a New American Security, February 2009. #GregElich #peacetreaty #SouthKorea