To many South Koreans, this could not have come at a worse time. With the ousted former president in prison and the prime minister and acting president merely performing a transition caretaker’s role until the May 9 presidential election, the United States’ apparent exploration of a ‘military option’ to deal with the North Korean nuclear problem sends a wave of nail-biting concern across South Korea over the possibility of a serious military conflict on the Korean peninsula, the first time since the end of the Korean War in July 1953. Neighbors talking about an imminent military conflict on our soil would be the last thing any nation would expect during a period of absent leadership.

We do not know what will happen. Perhaps after this latest escalation we will see a grand settlement at the last minute, as in 1994, resulting in rapprochement or possibly a peace treaty that North Korea has so long yearned for. Or, to the contrary and most dreadfully, the latest confrontation may lead to a military conflict. We just hope that a military conflict can be avoided at all costs.

A surgical strike was once considered in 1994. But a likelihood of high civilian casualties stemming from North Korea’s retaliation against the highly populated Seoul metropolitan area had the then Clinton administration abort the plan at the last minute. Since then, in the minds of South Koreans a surgical strike has existed only as a theoretical but impractical option. Sabres are rattled from time to time, but no one takes it seriously. Well, things all changed quickly here after the US-China summit meetings and the US’ short notice of the bombing of a Syrian airfields two weeks ago.

Having spent 23 years of broken promises and dashed hopes since the 1994 stand-off, Washington and Seoul are now standing on the same start line, asking the same question: what is North Korea’s intention?; will it relinquish its nuclear program at all, and if so at what cost?; and should we engage in a pre-emptive strike? We have come full circle.

Given what has transpired since 1994, North Korea has played its nuclear card well and effectively. A crumbling state once believed to be several years away from a total collapse has not only survived but is now threatening the United States, South Korea and Japan with China begging to reconsider. Maybe there have been hidden facts and classified justifications, but for things like this the outcome tells everything: North Korea got what it wanted, but the United States and South Korea did not. We were either fooled or did not know what we were subscribing to.

In retrospect, the 23 years have been a period of ‘hoping for the best.’ We were hoping the Pyongyang regime would collapse through a famine or internal rupture to make the nuclear program issue moot. We were hoping that someday somehow China would finally exercise its influence to change North Korea. For a long time, South Korea was also hoping inter-Korea economic cooperation to become a magic bullet to persuade the North. While the policies and schemes have changed names over the years -- Agreed Framework, Sunshine Policy, Six-Party Talks, Strategic Patience, UN sanction, you name it -- the ‘hoping for the best’ element has underpinned all of them.

It turns out that this ‘hoping for the best’ strategy is a diplomatic version of keeping your fingers crossed. It depends upon good will and bona fide motives of the counterpart. One way or another the counterpart should regret its current position and bother to mind its image in the outside world. Neither of these applies to North Korea. So, in a sense there is nothing surprising that we stand where we are now. Failures were almost preordained.

By coming back to the 1994 equation after 23 years, the United States is now apparently recalibrating and reformulating its strategy. And this time when it says “all options are on the table,” the pronouncement seems to be believed as such by all interested parties including North Korea. As things stand now, US turnaround is now exerting real pressure on North Korea and others, arguably for the first time since the summer of 1994. This ‘all court pressing,’ the real pressing for the first time, should be able to force North Korea to come to the negotiating table with a serious mind. Again, to us in South Korea, a massive military conflict should be avoided at all costs. All eyes and ears are glued to what Vice President Pence will have to say during his visit to Seoul on April 16 to 18.


By Lee Jae-min 

Lee Jae-min is a professor of law at Seoul National University. He can be reached at jaemin@snu.ac.kr. -- Ed.