[KS] Korean War

Wed Jul 5 11:13:23 EDT 2000

Excerpted from "The Progressive Response"
(For more info go to the end of article) 

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*** TIME TO END KOREAN WAR--50 YEARS LATER ***
by John Feffer

With East Asia changing rapidly, the United States has fallen out of tempo
with the times.

Although the Korean War--which began 50 years ago this week--hasn't
officially ended, the recent summit between the two Korean leaders indicates
that North and South Korea are finally moving toward reconciliation.

The two Koreas are closer than ever before. The meeting between South Korean
President Kim Dae Jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il was preceded by
an unprecedented surge in inter-Korean cooperation. More than 200,000 South
Koreans have now visited Mount Kumgang in the north, thanks to the Hyundai
corporation. Joint soccer games and musical concerts have expanded
unofficial contacts. Business across the divided peninsula is booming,
compared to the past. Inter-Korean trade hit an all-time high in 1999, a 50
percent increase over the year before.

The United States is acting, however, as though the Korean War is an ongoing
conflict, not the "forgotten war" of history textbooks.

True, the Clinton administration has provided economic assistance to North
Korea. The United States has recently fulfilled a promise by lifting
sanctions against the North Korean regime. And the State Department no
longer considers North Korea a "rogue" state.

But the Clinton administration has steadfastly refused to change the U.S.
military stance in East Asia. There are still 37,000 U.S. troops in South
Korea alone and 100,000 troops in the Asia-Pacific region. The Pentagon
insists on maintaining a military capacity that would allow the United
States to fight two wars simultaneously, one of them in East Asia. The
Nixon, Carter and Bush administrations all considered military reductions in
East Asia. But the Clinton administration has gone in the opposite direction
by increasing U.S. military presence in the region. Even after Korean
reunification, the Pentagon argues that U.S. troops must still remain on the
Korean peninsula.

As disturbing, the U.S. is pursuing the woefully expensive Theater Missile
Defense program ("Son of Star Wars") over the objections of Russia, China
and other countries. The Clinton administration has pushed Japan into
embracing a more offensive military posture and continues to sell high-tech
weaponry to South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. It's doing so even though North
Korea's entire government budget of $9.4 billion is smaller than South
Korea's military budget alone, which is $13 billion.

To justify its military presence on the peninsula, the U.S. government cites
the threat of North Korea's weapons program, specifically its ability to
build an intercontinental missile. But according to many arms-control
experts, this threat is exaggerated--by both North Korea and the United
States.

In reality, North Korea's missile program is technologically suspect and
more useful as a bargaining chip than for military purposes. Contrary to
some congressional assertions, North Korean missiles cannot reach the United
States and cannot carry nuclear payloads. North Korea's longest-range
missile, the Taepodong 2, has never been tested. Moreover, the canning of
used nuclear fuel rods from North Korea's Yongbyon reactor, a program frozen
under a 1994 agreement with the United States, was completed at the end of
May.

In its waning days, the Clinton administration can still adjust to reality.
In addition to lifting economic sanctions against North Korea, it needs to
consider a military reorientation. The United States should back away from
the missile-defense program and put the withdrawal of U.S. troops on the
negotiating table. Even Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., the Pentagon-friendly
chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, has declared that maybe it's time
for U.S. troops in Korea to return home. Only when the United States shows a
willingness to negotiate down its overwhelming military advantage will a
vulnerable country such as North Korea freeze its existing missile programs.

In the last decade, the United States has recognized Vietnam, made peace
with Russia and ushered China into the international economic order. There
is still an open wound in East Asia, and the United States is partly
responsible. It is now time for the United States to start putting away its
weapons and to negotiate an end to the Fifty Years War.

(John Feffer <JohnFeffer at aol.com> is based in Tokyo, where he works for the
East Asia Quaker International Affairs Program of the American Friends
Service Committee (Web site: www.afsc.org). He's a frequent contributor to
FPIF, and has recently authored a policy brief on the Korean peninsula,
which is posted at
http://www.foreignpolicy-infocus.org/briefs/vol5/v5n18korea.html)

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