This week witnessed one of the most dramatic diplomatic moments in modern memory. North Korean President Kim Jong-un came to the Demilitarized Zone that separates North and South Korea and, with a beaming smile, stepped across the Military Demarcation Line as he shook hands with South Korean President Moon Jae-in - becoming the first leader of North Korea ever to set foot upon South Korean soil. That event and subsequent discussions between the two leaders has raised the first real hope for a resolution to the 65-year war in decades.
Contrary to popular understanding, the Korean War has never ended; an uneasy truce was declared in 1953 and a demilitarized zone was established between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in the north and the Republic of Korea (ROK) in the south. The armistice froze the existing front line of combat operations, which at the time intersected the 38th parallel – the original border before the war began with North Korea’s invasion of the south. Since that time, heavily armed US and South Korean armies have stood facing the North Korean People’s Army and continued to menace and not infrequently kill one another. America still maintains a garrison of around 25,000 military personnel on the peninsula.
The meeting of the two Korean leaders at the Joint Security Area in the DMZ was all the more poignant given the violence that has occurred there and all along the border throughout the interminable war. Hundreds of Koreans and Americans have perished in conflicts and incidents along the DMZ. These include incursions by the North Koreans building massive tunnels under the DMZ, and an effort to assassinate South Korean President Park Chung Hee in 1968. In 1976, North Korean troops hacked two American soldiers to death with axes when they attempted to trim a tree in the southern area of the DMZ. (In an ironic twist, the US orchestrated a massive show of force following the murders and moved in to eliminate the tree. One of the South Korean soldiers who participated in that successful operation was none other than Moon Jae-in.)
The meeting between Presidents Kim and Moon has followed a rapid series of diplomatic surprises, including the impending summit between Kim and President Trump, and recent secret meeting between the CIA director and Kim in the DPRK. In addition to the historic handshake and photo-op at the DMZ, the talks between the two men have reportedly produced equally remarkable developments; including a reported offer by Kim to shut down his nuclear weapons program in exchange for an end to the war and US pledge of non-aggression. While the North Koreans have a long history of perfidiousness and empty rhetoric, the events of the past months seem to offer greater promise of a favorable outcome.
While the ruling political cartel of Republicrats argue about who is to take credit for the recent developments and snipe on cable news about who knows best how to proceed, Americans should take this moment to re-think (or rather think about for the first time) our government’s self-appointed role as world policeman and sole arbiter of right and wrong. Whether President Trump’s aggressive tone, sending his CIA director to meet with Kim, and exchange of playground insults with the North Korean dictator have produced the result, or whether President Moon deserves all the credit for his determined efforts to foster better relations, is not nearly as important as ending this vestigial proxy war between the United States and the Soviet Union – a state which ceased to exist a quarter century ago.
Presidents from both parties have failed to stop the North Koreans from obtaining the atomic bomb and been repeatedly bamboozled by both Presidents Kim Jong-un and his predecessor and father, Kim Jong-il. The frightful and evil nature of the North Korean regime is undeniable, but socialist and other tyrannical governments around the world have atrocious human rights records, and many of them have been or currently enjoy status as American allies. Moreover, our bankrupt federal government cannot afford to police the world and impose the glories of American-style liberty at the barrel of a gun.
Regardless of whether of our 65-year deadlocked war against the North Korean and Chinese communist forces was justified or necessary in 1950, the South Koreans have long since outgrown their need for a US military presence. The south has a GDP 36 times as large as the north and a powerful military armed with the latest technology. The North does have a 2-to-1 advantage in troops and artillery pieces, but its equipment and air forces are hopelessly obsolete.
Since the Clinton Administration, the dispute between the US and North Korea has centered around the North’s efforts to create a nuclear weapons program and the sanctions imposed on North Korea in retaliation. The north has long feared a US-led invasion from the south – a fear greatly exacerbated by the American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and our undeclared war against Libya. Like Iran and other states under continuing rhetorical threats of military aggression from the US government, the North Korean Stalinists have sought The Bomb as insurance against a US attack. Think former UN Ambassador and current National Security Advisor John Bolton (or Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham, et al.) repeatedly calling for attacks on Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, and Syria either explicitly or using the ubiquitous vague threat, “military option” and the proverbial “all options are on the table.”
While North Korean communists are notoriously inscrutable, and their possession of nukes is appalling, it is not hard to understand Mr. Kim’s desire for such an insurance policy. The US has never attacked a state possessing a nuclear bomb or nearing completion of one. Further, even though Libyan dictator Muamar Qaddafi voluntarily gave up his WMD program under US pressure in 2003, America bombed his military into rubble and he wound up being dragged through the streets, viciously beaten, humiliated, and shot to death by rebels less than eight years later; with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton famously laughing aloud on camera upon receiving the news of his death, saying, “We came, we saw, he died.”
The position of every Republicrat administration boils down to a standoff where the communists say they don’t trust America and want an end to sanctions and the war before denuclearization, while the American government does not trust the North Koreans and demands an end to their nuclear program before substantive discussions can take place. Meanwhile all previous US presidents have ruled out ever talking with the North Korean president, as this would “give legitimacy” to a totalitarian ruler; in the belief that being photographed with the elected king of America lends unwarranted gravitas to tin-pot dictators. This is our government’s position despite the fact that US presidents have glad-handed with mass-murderers and dictators for 75 years; from Indonesia’s Suharto, to General Pinochet of Chile, General Branco of Brazil, Shah Reza Pahlavi of Iran, The Islamist kings of Arabia, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, Nicolae Ceausescu of Romania, South Vietnam’s Ngo Dinh Diem, and even former South Korean President and killer of 100,000 civilians, Park Chung Hee.
So, regardless of membership in either wing of the Republicrat cartel, or one’s personal opinion of the current president’s personality, hair color, or Twitter etiquette, Americans should press their government to put an end to this war, and eliminate the nuclear threat from the DPRK though negotiations and removing the north’s perceived need for such weapons, by extricating ourselves from a civil war that has brought such deep and prolonged sorrow to the Korean people. Perhaps then we can begin to talk about an exit strategy for World War II and pull our troops out of Germany and Japan 73 years after the conflict, and 26 years after the end of the Cold War.
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