[Editorial] Complacency’s Creation

Security experts say that North Korea will never give up its nuclear program despite the international community’s sanctions following the UN Security Council resolution, since North Korea sees possession of nuclear weapons as the only way to secure its regime and military dominance over the South and further achieve communized unification. Nevertheless, the South Korean government is staying complacent in the face of the North’s provocation, even underestimating North Korea’s nuclear capability. It is nonsense to claim that the engagement policy will change the Kim Jong Il regime.

“The U.S. has engaged in war more than any other countries, and in case of a war on the Korean peninsula, South Korea will be the greatest victim,” chief presidential secretary for security affairs Song Min-soon said in a seminar. “Active inter-Korean exchanges and cooperation will prevent the U.S. from attacking the North,” he added. However, rather than worrying about the U.S. attacking North Korea, we must be concerned about the possibility of a constant “nuclear threat” coming from the North in case it arms itself with nuclear weapons and breaks the military balance on the peninsula tempted to start a war. Thus, it would be more appropriate for Song to say that when North Korea goes nuclear, South Korea will be the greatest victim.

As long as the North has nuclear weapons, blind pacifism will not be sufficient to safeguard peace. It may sound ironic, but if we were to maintain peace on the Korean peninsula, we must be prepared for a war. This is what the war history of the world teaches us. “The basic principle of keeping peace is to seek deterrence and balance. When you have the resolve to strike back hard once attacked with the actual capability to do so, no enemy will dare to take the offensive,” said Kim Hee-sang, who served as presidential advisor for national defense at the beginning of the Roh Moo-hyun administration.

North Korea, which invested 500 million dollars in nuclear program in the late 1990s while two million of its people died of hunger, will by no means give up its nuclear program easily. The only hope of dismantling its nuclear program lies in international cooperation to strengthen sanctions against the country so that the Kim Jong Il regime will see that giving up the nuclear weapons is the only way to survive. The South Korean government officials, who expect North Korea to show brotherly love or generosity without any nuclear deterrence or preparation for war, are the ones inciting the North to take up arms.

South Korea’s unilateral engagement of the North, which does not use the stick when needed, is the most inappropriate way to prevent a war, as it will only end up helping North Korea’s nuclear weapons development.