Rome Meets Timbuktu

The unification of the two Koreas is an event that most see as a very positive thing.  From a humanitarian point of view, I suppose it is.  The permanent reunification of separated families, the potential to relieve the suffering of millions of North Koreans, and the disarmament of North Korean ballistic missiles are definitely all good things.  There are, however, a plethora of other larger – let’s call them structural – problems that, if not dealt with correctly, have the potential to turn a potentially great event into a nightmare capable of destabilizing an entire region.  As the recent Egyptian “uprising” shows,  a sudden overthrow of a long-time dictators isn’t an improbable scenario.  If something like what happened in Egypt (or Tunisia) were to happen in North Korea, what would it mean – as in, what would happen if unification became a reality?  A recent article from The Diplomat outlines some of the dangers of Korean unification.  As the article points out from the beginining, shortly after unification …

[the] ecstasy would soon give way to reality. The international community would be left with a stabilization and state-building nightmare bigger than Afghanistan and Iraq and much more dangerous than German reunification 20 years ago. Indeed, if unification were to come about this hastily, the cataclysmic event could well go down in history as one of the biggest missed opportunities of our century…. When one considers the massive economic disparities that would also be in play because of a South Korean economy more than twenty-fold that of North Korea’s, the technical end of the Korean War could well mark the beginning of another…. Similarly, sudden unification could produce fateful new geostrategic fault lines. Recall that in 1945-1947, US patience and diplomacy were slowly overtaken by a congealing animus and strategic competition that remained frozen in the 40-year-long Cold War. In addition, mistrust and miscalculation could catalyze a Sino-American rivalry that might polarize all of Northeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific region.

There would be much to plan for in the event of sudden unification. Hard security issues, for instance, would include the disposition of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery; the movement of military troops and major combat platforms like aircraft carriers; the disarmament and reintegration of the 1.1-million Korean People’s Army; and the future location of alliance bases and forces.

Meanwhile, a raft of state-building issues would ensue, with perhaps the biggest being an unrealistic expectation in northern Korea for a massive economic transfer for which the world would have to be ready to help pay for. That would require new infrastructure, including regional energy grids, all in the midst of turmoil over migration, property rights, educational reform and environmental cleanup. Retributive justice could follow and might well spill over into the region. Things certainly wouldn’t go smoothly.

I don’t think I agree with the author that Korean unification would be a “bigger nightmare than Afghanistan and Iraq.”  North Korea, despite its deep seated political and social problems, is still more or less an “organized society” built around the concept of statehood, and South Korea (who would more than likely take responsibility for a large portion of the costs for economic development and integration) is a highly developed nation with a strong sense of nationalism and Korean solidarity, which extends, in many ways, to the North.  Modernizing the decrepit economic, social, and political institutions of North Korea certainly ins’t a light task, but I don’t see it worse than Afghanistan and Iraq.  Nevertheless,  the condition of a post-unification Korean peninsula is still potentially disastrous.  I can’t help but to think that South Korean economists and economic planners see the unification of the two Koreas as a potential killer of South Korean economic prosperity.  As for military planners, the potential for a 21st century cold war-type standoff between China and the U.S. over Korean unification must certainly be a top concern.  As for re-knitting the ocean-wide gaps between North and South Koreans on issues such as national identification, political ideology, recognized norms of behavior and other social issues, I wouldn’t even know where to start.

I don’t intend any of this to be read as reasons not to seek unification.  There are, however, more than enough things that could turn a huge opportunity for good into an unbelievably bad situation.

Advertisement