Commentary No. 28, Nov. 15, 1999
"South Korea and Nuclear Capacity"
The New York Times, in its edition of Nov. 14, reveals a new concern of the United States government, that the government of the Republic of Korea is secretly proceeding to achieve nuclear weapons. The objective, the newspaper says, is that the government of South Korea wishes to strengthen its position politically both vis-a-vis North Korea AND vis-a-vis the United States.
We have here an interesting situation, emblematic of the geopolitics of the next quarter century. The governments of South Korea and the United States have been very closely allied in the world arena since 1945, and of course especially since the Korean War. So why would a close ally of the United States, and one still so dependent on the military umbrella of the United States, wish to strengthen itself vis-a-vis the United States?
There could be many answers to such a question. One is obvious. All countries always wish to strengthen their positions in the geopolitical arena. But of course, to do so runs the risk of alienating a powerful ally and protector. Such a policy has costs. The costs must first appear to be worth it before a weaker country walks this path. Such a policy must necessarily be based on countering fears that are greater than that of displeasing the powerful patron. There are two fears that are clearly playing a role in the current situation.
The first fear is that the United States might be ready to make some kind of political arrangement with the government of North Korea which the government of South Korea would feel would damage its interests. On the face of it, this may seem unlikely. A political arrangement with North Korea would be highly unpopular in the United States and subject to much debate in the U.S. Congress. Still, it is unquestionably true that U.S.-North Korean relations have moved in the last five years from unremitting hostility to cautious, if still hostile, negotiations. It is not inconceivable then that they might improve further.
Given the dramatically bad economic situation of North Korea and its relative political isolation on the world scene (even from its erstwhile closest ally, China), what could have induced the United States to enter into these negotiations (however at arms lengths they are) with North Korea? The answer hits one in the eyes: the fear that the U.S. has of the potential nuclear capacity of the government of North Korea.
Should it then be any wonder that the government of South Korea draws the obvious lesson that nuclear capacity is a crucial element in the current world geopolitical structure, and that if both North Korea and the United States have it but South Korea does not, South Korea's interests will become a secondary consideration for the other two. And it should then be equally obvious that, from the U.S. point of view, an enhanced potentiality in nuclear weaponry for South Korea is a danger they wish to avert.
There is however a second fear, less immediate, that may underlie the thinking of the South Korean government. They may be looking ahead not five years but twenty-five years. Much is changing in East Asia, not merely in the economic arena but in the military and therefore the political arena. North Korea is not the only country to have been developing nuclear capacity. China of course has long had it, and in general China has been seeking to strengthen itself militarily in a serious way. And now, for the first time since 1945, there is serious discussion in Japan as to whether they should not renounce their constitutional abandonment of military power and perhaps obtain nuclear capacity themselves. No one doubts that Japan has the financial and research resources to achieve this rapidly, if they so decided.
What is behind all of this increased emphasis on the separate military strength of each state in East Asia are two things: the anticipated decline of U.S. military capacity and involvement in the region; and the unstable political equilibrium of the region, which has three very knotty but very urgent problems to resolve: the reunification of Korea, the reunification of China, and the emotional reacceptance of the Japan of the twenty-first century by the Korea and the China of the twenty-first century. The government of South Korea does not intend to be left out of the negotiations on these questions and may well feel that nuclear capacity is what buys a seat at the table. (It should be noted that this logic applies to the government of Taiwan as well, and it may be surmised that they have been thinking of this possibility as well.)
Will there be any other players in this geopolitical struggle in this crucial and powerful area of the world? Perhaps Russia, but first Russia would have to reconstruct itself as an integrated political system with a strong military force, and that is a question about which the future is still unclear. Perhaps the countries of Southeast Asia grouped together in ASEAN, but they may be too busy holding themselves together politically and maintaining their economic equilibrium to be able to spare the energy to become active players in the East Asian arena. In effect, the struggles in East Asia that will have so much impact on the kind of world we build in the next century will be at most spectator sports for the rest of the world, with the partial exception of the United States.
The one thing of which we can be sure is that nuclear capacity will continue to proliferate, and very soon at an astonishing speed. We should all learn to live with this reality in our political psyches, for indeed we have no choice. It would be more useful to concentrate on the political solutions for the hard problems than to waste energy trying in vain to stem nuclear proliferation. The fact is that the dangers of interstate nuclear conflict are both lower and higher in East Asia than in any other region of the world today. They are lower for several reasons: there are only a few states involved; these states are large and relatively stable; the leadership of their regimes has not been volatile and has for the most part heretofore been acting with cold calculated rationality. On the other hand the dangers are far greater since, should conflict break out, there is no serious possibility that any outside force, including that of the United States, could in fact step in and impose its order on the situation. East Asia is not the Balkans. And if conflict were to break out, the level of destruction will indeed be awesome.
What is striking about the present state of interstate relations in East Asia is that no one, no state, no statesman, is taking serious initiatives to initiate a process of real negotiations, multilateral negotiations among the states of the region. They all seem either too timid or too engrossed in their internal political dilemmas or too intimidated by the United States to launch such initiatives. But this may change.
[Copyright by Immanuel Wallerstein. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to download, forward electronically or e-mail to others and to post this text on non-commercial community Internet sites, provided the essay remains intact and the copyright note is displayed. To translate this text, publish it in printed and/or other forms, including commercial Internet sites and excerpts, contact the author at iwaller@binghamton.edu; fax: 1-607-777-4315.
These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen
from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]
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