End of an era

In 2003, Qaddafi dismantled Libya’s nuclear arms program in exchange for better relations with the West. At the time, it seemed like a great idea ...

Let me summarize my last series of posts.

We are nearing the end of relative global peace, specifically the peace that has reigned since the Korean armistice was signed back in 1953. This era is ending because of changes to the international system over the past two decades and to the nature of global peace itself.

First, a balance of terror no longer exists to contain regional conflicts and thus keep them from going global. Military alliances have become less specific in their aims and reciprocal responsibilities. In the East, this has happened through the replacement of the Warsaw Pact by the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). In the West, this has happened through a broadening of NATO to include new members and new aims, as well as through a general weakening of commitment among older members.

Second, global peace no longer maintains an acceptable status quo. Previously, states merely pushed the envelope of peace here and there to see what they could get away with. There was also terrorist action by dispossessed groups that had nothing to gain from the status quo. But such groups, by definition, were geopolitically marginal. Peace was acceptable to those who had the power to destroy it.

This view has radically changed in the case of North Korea. Previously, Pyongyang saw the conquest of South Korea as an almost hypothetical goal that could be pushed indefinitely into the future. The status quo was wrong but bearable. Today, it’s no longer bearable. The other Korea has created a new dynamic by embracing post-nationalism, multiculturalism, and large-scale immigration.

This might not matter if the North had followed the same ideological evolution as the South. But it hasn’t. The North has been frozen in time. It still sees itself as a vehicle for preserving and perpetuating the Korean people. It still adheres to values that were normal throughout the world only a half-century ago. Thus, North Korea can no longer accept the “status quo” even as a temporary expediency. It now sees an invasion of the South as something that must happen soon—before the demographic changes become irreversible.

Elsewhere, the status quo has likewise taken on a new dynamic. With the end of the Cold War, it increasingly means American military interventions that would have been unthinkable previously. There is now an “imbalance of terror”—the United States is free to overthrow one unfriendly regime after another without triggering a major war. This trend has not gone unnoticed, particularly by the North Koreans:

North Korea’s official news agency carried comments this week from a Foreign Ministry official criticizing the air assault on Libyan government forces and suggesting that Libya had been duped in 2003 when it abandoned its nuclear program in exchange for promises of aid and improved relations with the West.

Calling the West’s bargain with Libya “an invasion tactic to disarm the country,” the official said it amounted to a bait and switch approach. “The Libyan crisis is teaching the international community a grave lesson,” the official was quoted as saying Tuesday, proclaiming that North Korea’s “songun” ideology of a powerful military was “proper in a thousand ways” and the only guarantor of peace on the Korean Peninsula. (McDonald, 2011)

There has indeed been an arms buildup in countries that fear eventual U.S. intervention, particularly China, Russia, and Iran. None of them wish to go one-on-one with the U.S., for obvious reasons. The result has been the formation of a new pan-Eurasian alliance: the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). Politics makes strange bedfellows, and it is indeed strange to see the Islamic Republic of Iran wanting to bed down with China and Russia, both of which have restive Muslim minorities.

Despite the arms buildup, and an ever more fragile international system, global peace might still continue indefinitely. The destabilizing factor is really the spread of an increasingly aggressive globalist ideology and, correspondingly, resistance by various forms of anti-globalism.

For comparison, we can turn to the gradual breakdown of the post-Napoleonic peace that lasted from 1815 to 1914. That century-long peace was made possible by the Concert of Europe, a coalition of conservative regimes that worked together to keep the continent free of liberalism and nationalism. The coalition fell apart during the second half of the 19th century and gave way to a looser system of opposing military alliances.

The really destabilizing factor, however, was the return of liberalism and nationalism to the continent. Demands grew for democratic constitutions and for the creation of states along ethnic lines. Eventually, much if not most of Europe’s intelligentsia came to see the status quo as an archaic monstrosity. When global war finally broke out in 1914, it was readily framed as a struggle between “freedom” and “tyranny.”

From the “old order” to nationalism to globalism

Today, the rise of globalism might seem to promise a return to that lost era, when liberalism and nationalism were still on the margins of political life. That old order, however, allowed people to organize their lives along traditional lines—on the basis of kinship and ethnicity. Nor was there any effort to “elect a new people.” Loyalty ran both ways, and the ruling aristocracies felt bound to their subjects in a way that would seem incomprehensible to our current elites.

Indeed, the late 19th century saw liberalism and nationalism begin a process that would eventually culminate in today’s globalism. Both liberals and nationalists wanted to open up the tight little world of small communities. Both wished to create a larger community, the nation state, that would provide more room for individual freedom and individual identity. Both viewed “parochialism” as an obstacle to progress and the creation of a more rational social order. Above all, both saw the leveling of local identities as the means to create a society that would be militarily stronger and economically more viable.

Nationalism has thus paved the way for globalism. It has merged local identities into national identities that are, to varying degrees, synthetic and lacking in authenticity. The more artificial the resulting national identity, the easier it has been for globalism to present itself as the next logical step.

From globalism to what?

There is one more way in which globalism resembles nationalism, as well as other ideologies. It tends to push ahead while ignoring evidence that things aren’t working out as planned. And this blindness will likewise condemn it to the same fate that has befallen other ideologies. Until then, however, it will likely do much harm.

Will globalism collapse through an eventual global conflict, like fascism in the mid-20th century? Or will it collapse under the weight of its own contradictions, like communism a half-century later? And just what will post-globalism look like? These are questions for which I have no ready answers. Perhaps you do.

References

McDonald, M. (2011). North Korea suggests Libya should have kept nuclear program, New York Times, March 24, 2011.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/world/asia/25korea.html

Towards an imbalance of terror?

Member and observer states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). In both the east and the west, defense alliances have become less centralized and more loosely defined since the end of the Cold War. They no longer contain regional conflicts and may actually cause them to go global. (source)

Tensions are mounting on the Korean Peninsula, as seen last November in the bombardment of Yeongpyeong Island. Is a second Korean War imminent?

Not likely, if the general reaction is to be believed. An example of this thinking is given by David Kang, director of the Korean Studies Institute at USC:

We often call the situation a “powderkeg” or a “tinderbox,” implying a very unstable situation in which one small spark could lead to a huge explosion. But the evidence actually leads to the opposite conclusion: we have gone 60 years without a major war, despite numerous “sparks” such as the skirmish that occurred last week. If one believes the situation is a tinderbox, the only explanation for six decades without a major war is that we have been extraordinarily lucky. I prefer the opposite explanation: deterrence is quite stable, both sides know the costs of a major war, and both sides—rhetoric aside—keep smaller incidents in their proper perspective. (Kang, 2010)

Yet the current situation differs from the one that prevailed during most of those sixty years. From 1953 to the late 1980s, there was no second Korean War because neither the United States nor the Soviet Union wanted one. Both parties considered the division of the Korean Peninsula to be an acceptable compromise. The only people really unhappy were the Koreans themselves, who on their own could do little. The decision to go to war ultimately lay in Washington and Moscow.

This situation has changed since the Cold War ended in the late 1980s. Moscow has ceased to be a decision center for global conflict, and the Warsaw Pact has given way to a much more decentralized defense pact: the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). NATO still exists and has even accepted new member states, but it too is now a looser organization with less clearly defined obligations. Many members have refused to support the latest military operations in Afghanistan and Libya.

The end of the Cold War also stopped the Soviet Union’s direct and indirect subsidies of North Korea. Throughout the 1990s, the regime in Pyongyang teetered on the brink of collapse, with reunification being the most likely outcome. At the time, many South Koreans actually feared this prospect, having seen the high cost of reunification in Germany.

That window of opportunity closed in the early 2000s. By then, Pyongyang had weathered the worst of the storm, as had its semi-allies China and Russia. By then too, the South had embraced its new Global Korea policy—an explicit shift to post-nationalism, multiculturalism, and large-scale immigration. In 2006, Pyongyang’s leading newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, angrily denounced the new policy as “an unpardonable argument to obliterate the race by denying the homogeneity of the Korean race and to make an immigrant society out of South Korea, to make it a hodgepodge, to Americanize it” (Koehler, 2006).

The Global Korea policy has fundamentally changed Pyongyang’s vision of the future. Conquest of South Korea is no longer a goal to be pushed indefinitely into the future. It is something that must happen soon—before the demographic changes in the South become irreversible.

So the North Koreans are upset. But what can they do? Any invasion of the South would trigger an American intervention. And it is doubtful whether China would come in on Pyongyang’s side. As David Kang points out:

If it is an unprovoked North Korean invasion, then the North probably goes it alone. Even China is unlikely to support such a war. Although the Chinese are supportive of North Korea, they are clearly not in favor of starting a war on the peninsula that would have enormous negative consequences for every country in the region. (Kang, 2010)

In a conflict between North Korea alone and the United States, there is little doubt about the eventual outcome. The United States would win.

[…] although North Korea possesses a significant missile arsenal, Pyongyang is unlikely to contemplate launching full scale strikes against anyone, given the conservative nature of the regime which fears for its own survival, and the inevitable scale of US retaliation which would almost certainly result in the destruction of North Korea. The same reality applies to North Korea’s million plus army, which despite being among the largest in the world, is devoid of any real sustainable offensive capacity. Even in the unlikely scenario that the regime considers launching an invasion of South Korea, North Korea simply lacks the most basic resources that would be needed to mount an aggressive military campaign. Conversely, the South Koreans and the US have the personnel and technology, especially air supremacy, to quickly neutralise any North Korean offensive strike (Fazio, 2011)

Clearly, the above scenario holds little appeal for the North Koreans. But there are other scenarios. The most attractive one, from their standpoint, would bring other nations into the war on North Korea’s side, especially China.

Yet, as David Kang noted, China is at most a semi-ally. With some reluctance, it might even accept reunification of the peninsula under South Korean control, the only proviso being the departure of U.S. troops. In the mid-1990s, this outcome seemed very likely to the Chinese:

[There] would come other important developments, most important the eventual collapse of North Korea and the reunification of the Korean Peninsula. It is awkward for the Chinese to acknowledge this publicly given their long relationship to the ultraorthodox Communist regime in North Korea, but Beijing has to realize that that regime, which has literally bankrupted the country it rules, is doomed and that reunification under South Korea is likely in the next decade or two. Foreign-affairs experts in China told us that they doubted American troops would remain in Korea long after reunification began, a prediction that seems realistic, since the reason for the troops, the North Korean threat, would have disappeared. (Bernstein & Munro, 1998, p. 176)

Today, such an outcome seems unlikely. Germany has been reunified for two decades, and U.S. troops are still there. For a number of geopolitical reasons, the Americans wish to keep a military presence in mainland East Asia just as they wish the same in continental Europe. Even if U.S. troops did leave, South Korea’s political class would remain oriented to the United States and would tilt a reunified Korea in that direction. China would thus have a U.S. ally right next to its industrial heartland of Manchuria.

For these reasons and others, China will not abandon Pyongyang:

Despite Chinese rhetoric in support of peaceful unification of the Koreas, Beijing fears that a unified Korea would have strong ties with the United States, eliminating the buffer zone that North Korea provided. A reunified Korea would also eliminate North Korea’s value as political and military leverage against the U.S. stance on Taiwan. Lastly, China has a population of nearly two million ethnic Korean-Chinese living just north of the Chinese-North Korean border. A unified Korea might provide the impetus for a separatist movement. Therefore, instead of a reunified Korea, China’s long-term objective is to encourage an evolution of the DPRK into a stable and economically prosperous, non-nuclear regime that remains aligned toward Beijing. (Mrosek, 2011, p. 4)

As a semi-ally, how might China enter a second Korean conflict on Pyongyang’s side? There seem to be four conditions:

1. North Korea is not perceived as the aggressor. If the U.S. intervenes in North Korea as it has previously in Kosovo, Iraq, and Libya, the Chinese would at least covertly assist Pyongyang.

2. Tensions are already high between China and the U.S. This could come about for a number of reasons: Taiwan; the trade balance; concerns over Tibet and the South China Sea; etc.

3. Other SCO member states are willing to provide at least covert assistance.

4. NATO is increasingly divided, with some member states being members in name only.

The above scenario is certainly far from science fiction. The United States could intervene in North Korea if it believed that the regime was about to collapse and that a popular uprising was in progress. After all, the same kind of intervention seemed to work in Libya. There is also the mistaken belief, common among U.S. policymakers, that the Chinese would support the U.S. or at least do nothing (Mrosek, 2011, pp. 50-52). Ironically, that belief can be traced in part to the above passage by Bernstein and Munro.

Just as mistakenly, the Americans, and perhaps also the Chinese, believe that the resulting conflict could be contained to the Korean Peninsula—much like the first Korean War. Yet such containment is less likely today than it was in 1950-1953. Back then, both the United States and the Soviet Union were war-weary and wished to consolidate their newly won spheres of influence. There was thus a deliberate effort to keep the war from spreading, as seen in Truman’s sacking of Gen. MacArthur. Finally, although many nations fought in the Korean War, only two of them—the United States and the Soviet Union—had the power to decide whether it would remain regional or go global.

The same principle held throughout the Cold War. The international system was essentially a duopoly—a “balance of terror.” When the Hungarian Revolution broke out, the United States thought long and hard … and did nothing. When the two power blocs did intervene in regional conflicts, as in Korea and Vietnam, the conflicts remained regional.

With the end of the Cold War, the United States has been more willing to engage in military interventions that would have been unthinkable before. One result has been an arms buildup in countries that fear U.S. intervention, notably China, Russia, and Iran. This fear was instrumental to creation of the SCO. Unlike the Warsaw Pact, however, the SCO has no single decision center, and its member states do not have clearly defined obligations to each other.

The same could be said for NATO. Its aims are no longer clearly defined and its members more and more reluctant to engage in theatres of war that now lie well outside Europe. Increasingly, NATO is providing a cover for operations led primarily by the United States and any other member states that wish to tag along.

This new international system can do little to contain regional wars. It may indeed have the potential to draw one nation after another into an initially minor conflict, especially if they see it as a prelude to similar interventions to be launched against themselves. The world situation today thus scarcely resembles 1950. It seems to have more in common with … 1914.

References

Bernstein, R. & R.H. Munro. (1998).The Coming Conflict with China, New York: Vintage Books.

Fazio, D. (2011). The North Korean security threat: an historical context and current policy options, ERAS, 12(2), 1-25.

Kang, D. (2010). Korea Expert Answers Your Questions.

http://iamkoream.com/nk-questions/

Koehler, R. (2006). I guess this means the DPRK won’t be inviting Hines Ward for a visit (English translation of Rodong Sinmun editorial).
http://www.rjkoehler.com/2006/04/27/i-guess-this-means-the-dprk-wont-be-inviting-hines-ward-for-a-visit/

Mrosek, D.M. (2011). China and North Korea: A Peculiar Relationship, thesis, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California.
http://edocs.nps.edu/npspubs/scholarly/theses/2011/March/11Mar_Mrosek.pdf