{"id":1860,"date":"2017-08-01T04:24:32","date_gmt":"2017-08-01T11:24:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=1860"},"modified":"2017-08-01T04:28:36","modified_gmt":"2017-08-01T11:28:36","slug":"analysis-64-years-after-the-korean-war-the-worlds-coldest-and-most-dangerous-peace-pbs-newshour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=1860","title":{"rendered":"“Analysis: 64 years after the Korean War, the world\u2019s coldest and most dangerous peace”, PBS NewsHour"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

By Michael D. Mosettig, July 27, 2017<\/p>\n

SEOUL \u2014 Sixty-four years ago this month (July 27\u200b, 1953)\u200b the guns stopped firing in the Korean War, officially ending a conflict that cost the lives of more than 30,000 American combatants. \u200b<\/p>\n

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But\u200b \u200bfor Koreans on either side of a heavily-armed Demilitarized Zone, the three-year war that killed as many as two million Korean\u200b fighters and civilians \u200bconcluded not with a treaty but only an armistice, and the world\u2019s coldest and most dangerous\u200b peace. Today, on one side, the communist North lives between nuclear braggadocio and economic privation. On the other, a democratic South that has achieved Western levels of prosperity amid disciplined anxiety.<\/p>\n

For me, a third time visitor to South Korea, the country is always an array of contrasts. The risk of war is never far away but Seoul on the surface resembles the more peaceful capitals of Asia. It is now the 12th richest nation in the world, but the economy is struggling to make the transition from big companies making big things like supertankers to a more innovative and risk taking model. A newly-elected liberal president will try to govern a fundamentally conservative society.<\/p>\n

The city offers frequent jarring reminders of both the grim post-war decades and the current prosperity \u2014 and of the knife\u2019s edge between peace and the dangers of war.<\/p>\n

The city offers frequent jarring reminders of both the grim post-war decades and the current prosperity \u2014 and of the knife\u2019s edge between peace and the dangers of war.<\/p>\n

In an elegant Seoul hotel, I saw a business executive talk to an international conference of his boyhood experience immediately after the war, going out from the city\u200b with his family into the mountains, stripping bark from trees for nourishment.<\/p>\n

At another sprawling hotel complex on the edge of Seoul\u200b, a think tank analyst described an increasingly volatile\u200b Northeast Asia: a \u200bnuclear\u200b North Korea, an ambitious China, a restless Japan and, beyond Asia, a United States now more interested in transactional than \u200btraditional\u200b diplomacy.\u200b (The latest Pew Research global survey<\/a> shows a 75 percent approval rating among South Koreans for the United States, among the world\u2019s highest,\u200b but a\u200b tanking 17 percent approval of President Donald Trump. By comparison, President Barack Obama had 88 percent).<\/p>\n

Almost every day, television newscasts and newspapers carry lead stories of another North Korean missile or nuclear test. (Last Friday, the U.S. also announced it would soon ban citizens from traveling to or through North Korea). Yet \u200bin\u200b Seoul, a once bland city now becoming more architecturally ambitious, Koreans\u200b start their working days \u200bwalking\u200b past signs pointing to the nearest bomb shelters and head \u200binto the city\u2019s ubiquitous coffee shops.<\/p>\n

But get deeper into conversation and sometimes you hear something different, especially when there\u200b \u200bis talk in\u200b in Washington that all options are on the table for dealing with the North.\u200b The South Korean capital is only 30 miles from the Demilitarized Zone, and experts calculate that even a North Korean conventional attack would kill tens of thousands within hours.<\/p>\n

\u201cI \u200bcannot imagine\u200b \u200bliving\u200b in a country \u200beven more barren \u200bthan it\u200b was in the 1950s, full of the waste from nuclear and biological weapons,\u201d a mid-30s Seoul resident told me.<\/p>\n

Other reminders of those barren post-war \u200bdays pop up in odd ways. Many Seoul restaurants carry a dish called Military Stew, which has become popular with younger customers offering a big dish of food for $6 to $8. But when they ask their parents about the ingredients \u2014 spam, sausage, ham and \u200b bits of green ( Koreanized with kimchi and hot sauces\u200b) \u2014 they are told these \u200bwere\u200b the leavings their elders gathered from U.S. military bases in the years immediately after the war.<\/p>\n

(In the interests of journalism, I tried it, but probably will forsake it in future visits for the wide variety of interesting Korean cuisine).\u200b<\/p>\n

So, the question for many here: What\u2019s our next move?<\/p>\n

Newly-entrusted with preserving the peace and expanding the prosperity is liberal South Korean president Moon Jae-in, who was\u200b elected in May\u200b following the impeachment of his \u200b\u200bconservative predecessor Park G\u200beun-hye\u200b for her involvement in an influence peddling scandal.<\/p>\n

President Moon comes from the line of South Korean politicians going back to former President Kim Dae-jung\u200b \u200bwho sought \u200bsome kind of rapprochement \u200bwith the north. So far, every Moon gesture to reach out to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un\u200b has been rebuffed or ignored. But he keeps on trying.<\/p>\n

Moon has gained time and a bit of running room, according to both American and South Korean diplomats, with his Washington and G-20 summit meetings with President Trump. Moon\u2019s entourage has so far spun the conservative South Korean media and foreign policy establishment to the view that the encounters\u200b were successful, especially the Washington summit that gave South Korea a leading role in dealing with the North.<\/p>\n

American officials think the relationship between South Korea and the U.S. could come under increasing strain if Moon\u2019s efforts with the North do not bring results.<\/p>\n

Former U.S. Ambassador Mark Lippert said \u201cthere is a modicum of alignment\u201d between Seoul and Washington. But he and other American officials think the relationship between South Korea and the U.S. could come under increasing strain if Moon\u2019s efforts with the North do not bring results.<\/p>\n

South Koreans are giving Moon sky high approval ratings, nearly 80 percent in some polls, \u200bsaid Asan \u200bInstitute\u200b analyst Kim J\u200biyoon\u200b, partly\u200b reflecting the collapse of the usually dominant conservative establishment in the wake of the Park impeachment.<\/p>\n

\u200bAs with \u200bmost democratic leaders, Moon\u2019s ultimate political success rests on the country\u2019s economic performance, especially reversing the upward trend of youth unemployment. The economy is expected to grow by 2.6 percent or\u200b more this year, reasonably healthy by western standards but lagging behind Asian dynamic expectations.<\/p>\n

And, expressed by both analyst Kim and others, Seoul youth unemployment \u2014 and to loosen the grip of the major corporations, or chaebols, on the economy and to \u200bencourage more dynamic small businesses \u2014 is a dilemma perhaps beyond the ability of Moon or any politician to resolve quickly.<\/p>\n

Young South Koreans advance through one of the most competitive education systems in the world; more than \u200b70 percent are now going to higher education. (Males go through two years of mandatory military service). When they emerge, they want nice office jobs, which the chaebols are producing in smaller numbers.\u200b<\/p>\n

The system, explained Kim, does not produce risk-takers ready to settle for lower salaries with small start ups.\\\u201cKorean society does not allow for failure,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Moon\u2019s dependence on the chaebols was symbolized by the big business retinue that accompanied him to the Trump summit. To rebuff accusations that the Korea-U.S.\u200b Free Trade Agreement (KORUS) \u200bis\u200b one sided against the United States, the business executives came with promises\u200b to expand South Korea\u2019s already formidable direct investment across America.<\/p>\n

Even after 60-plus years of a fragile peace, South Koreans are fully aware that their efforts to build a modern society and economy \u200bare constantly\u200b at risk of being turned quickly again into rubble, by accidents, blunders and miscues from as close as North Korea and as far away as Washington.<\/p>\n

As analyst Kim observed, South Korea is a country of rapid changes.<\/p>\n

President Moon has a five-year term, but realistically he has maybe only months to show he can induce \u200bpeaceful \u200bchanges from the regime in the North or offer better jobs to the impatient youth of his country \u200bamid a still sluggish world economy.<\/p>\n

But as much as modern South Korea symbolizes rapid change, most visibly embodied in the spread of its pop culture through Asia, it is still rooted in centuries and millennia of cultural traditions, the kind on display in art and history museums. T<\/p>\n

Those museums also reflect a saga \u200bof rising and falling dynasties, wars, invasions and colonization. Even after 60-plus years of a fragile peace, South Koreans are fully aware that their efforts to build a modern society and economy \u200bare constantly\u200b at risk of being turned quickly again into rubble, by accidents, blunders and miscues from as close as North Korea and as far away as Washington.<\/p>\n

Michael D. Mosettig<\/a><\/p>\n

Michael D. Mosettig was the PBS NewsHour\u2019s foreign affairs and defense editor from 1985 to 2012. He now travels the world, watches wonks push policy in Washington’s multitude of think tanks and writes occasional dispatches on what those scholars and wannabe secretaries of state have in mind for Europe, Asia and Latin America.<\/p>\n

PBS NewsHour<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Michael D. Mosettig, July 27, 2017 SEOUL \u2014 Sixty-four years ago this month (July 27\u200b, 1953)\u200b the guns stopped firing in the Korean War, officially ending a conflict that cost the lives of more than 30,000 American combatants. \u200b RELATED CONTENT North Korea missile program farther along than believed, report says Can U.S. and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1860"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1860"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1860\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1863,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1860\/revisions\/1863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}