Alternatives to peacekeeping in Korea: The role of non-state actors and face-to-face encounters

Abstract

Korea is one of the world's most volatile areas, not least because traditional UN mediation and peacekeeping missions are impossible. Having intervened in the Korean War on behalf of the southern side, the UN is a party to the conflict, rather than a neutral arbiter. The situation is particularly problematic because political interactions are characterized by a high degree of state-control over security policy. In both parts of the peninsula the state has, at least until recently, exercised the exclusive right to deal with the opponent on the other side of the hermetically divided peninsula. Given these domestic and international constrains, alternative approaches to conflict resolution are urgently needed. The recently proliferating literature on human security offers possible solutions, for it urges policy makers to view security beyond the conventional military-based defence of the state and its territory. Using such a conceptual framework, the essay assesses the potential significance non-state interactions between North and South, particularly those that promote communication, information exchange and face-to-face encounters. Even though these interactions remain limited, they are of crucial importance, for they provide an opportunity to reduce the stereotypical threat images that continue to fuel conflict on the peninsula.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Alex Bellamy, Kim Soonam and an anonymous referee for comments on an earlier draft. Thanks as well to Moon Chung-in, for hosting my stay at Yonsei University, and to the US Institute of Peace and the Humboldt Foundation for sponsoring my research. The essay expands on ideas first expressed in my ‘From State to Human Security: Reflections on Inter-Korean Relations,’ KNDU Review: Journal of National Security Affairs, Vol.7, No.2, December 2002, pp.143–69.

Notes

Koh Byung Chul, ‘The Foreign and Unification Policies of the Republic of Korea’, Kil Soong Hoom and Moon Chung-in (eds.), Understanding Korean Politics (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001), pp.231–2.

See Alex J. Bellamy and Paul Williams, ‘Introduction’ to this collection.

Oh Kongdan and Ralph C. Hassig, North Korea Through the Looking Glass (Washington, DC: Brookings, 2000), pp.30, 142–3.

See Kil Soong Hoom and Moon Chung-in, ‘Introduction’ to Kil and Moon, Understanding Korean Politics, p.2; and Shin Gi-Wook, ‘Nation, History and Politics: South Korea,’ in Hyung Il Pai and Timothy R. Tangherlini (eds.), Nationalism and the Construction of Korean Identity (Berkeley, CA: Institute of East Asian Studies, 1998), p.152.

Shin (see n.4 above), pp.156–64.

See Choi Chungmoo, ‘The Discourse of Decolonization and Popular Memory: South Korea,’ Positions, Vol.1, No.1, 1993; Roy Richard Grinker, Korea and Its Futures: Unification and the Unfinished War (London: Macmillan, 1998); Park Ki Sun and Chon Ri Ryong, Hankook shimun-ae banyong-dwen Bukhan ‘image’ [North Korea's image reflected in South Korean newspapers] (Seoul: So Hwa, Hanlim Science Institute Report No. 25, 1995); Dennis Hart, ‘Creating the National Other: Opposing Images of Nationalism in South and North Korean Education,’ Korean Studies, Vol.23, 1999, pp.68–93.

Eighth US Army, United Nations Command Security Battalion, Panmunjom, 2000, www.korea.army.mil/org/jsa/.

Park Han S., ‘North Korean Perceptions of Self and Others: Implications for Policy Choices,’ Pacific Affairs, Vol.73, No.4, Winter 2000, p.504.

See Hart (n.6 above).

William Perry, then US Secretary of Defense, considered the 1994 Korean nuclear crisis the only time during his tenure when he ‘believed that the US was in serious danger of a major war’. William J. Perry, ‘The United States and the Future of East Asian Security’, in Woo Keun-Min (ed.), Building Common Peace and Prosperity in Northeast Asia (Seoul: Yonsei University Press, 2000), p.121. Numerous analyses have meanwhile been written about the crisis. Among them are Don Oberdorfer, The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History (London: Warner Books, 1998) and Leon V. Sigal, Disarming Strangers: Nuclear Diplomacy with North Korea (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998).

See, for instance, Moon Chung-in, ‘The Korean Summit and Implications for Peace in Northeast Asia,’ in Woo (n.10 above).

Kent E. Calder, ‘The New Face of Northeast Asia’, Foreign Affairs, Jan./Feb. 2001, p.16.

Ibid. p.110.

Ibid. p.107. See also François Godement, ‘Une paix asiatique est-elle possible sans architecture régionale,’ Politique E´trangère, No.1, 2001, pp.82–92.

United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), p.22.

Lloyd Axworthy, ‘Human Security and Global Governance: Putting People First,’ Global Governance, Vol.7, No.1, Jan.–March 2001.

See, for instance, Edward Newman, ‘Human Security and Constructivism’, International Studies Perspectives, Vol.2, 2001; Roland Paris, ‘Human Security: Paradigm Shift or Hot Air?’ International Security, Vol.26, No.2, Fall 2001.

See Amitav Acharya, ‘Human Security: East versus West,’ International Journal, Vol.56, No.3, Summer 2001.

Paris (n.17 above), p.89.

Yuen, Foong Khong, ‘Human Security: A Shotgun Approach to Alleviating Human Misery?’ Global Governance, Vol.7, No.3, July–Sept. 2001, p.232.

Hazel Smith, ‘Bad, mad, sad or rational actor? Why the ‘Securitation’ paradigm makes for poor policy analysis of North Korea, International Affairs, Vol. 76, No.3, 2000, p.596.

Stephen Noerper, ‘Regime Security and Military Tension in North Korea,’ in Moon, Understanding Regime Dynamics in North Korea, p.167–74.

Valerie Reitman, ‘South Koreans on trial for warming to those from North,’ Sydney Morning Herald, 30 Oct. 2001.

Paris (n.17 above), p.93.

Newman, (n.17 above), p.244.

Ibid. p.240.

For two excellent and highly insightful analyses of this dilemma see Anthony Burke, ‘Caught Between National and Human Security: Knowledge and Power in Post-Crisis Asia’, Pacifica Review, Vol.13, No.3, 2001; and Alex J. Bellamy and Matt McDonald, ‘The Utility of Human Security’: Which Humans? What Security?’ Security Dialogue, Vol.33, No.3, 2002, pp.373–8.

Cynthia Enloe, Bananas, Beaches, and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics (London: Pandora, 1989), p.xi. For an excellent application of this strategy of inquiry to Korea see Katharine H.S. Moon, Sex Among Allies: Military Prostitution in U.S.–Korea Relations (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997).

See Sigal (n.10 above).

Chung Oknim, ‘The US-ROK Private Sector Role in Peace and Security on the Korean Peninsula’, The Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, Vol.11, No.1, Summer 1999, pp.104–6.

Omawale Omawale, ‘An Exercise in Ambivalence: Negotiating with North Korea,’ Harvard Asia Pacific Review, Vol.3, No.2, Summer 1999.

Hazel Smith, ‘Opening Up by Default: North Korea, the Humanitarian Community and the crisis,’ The Pacific Review, Vol.12, No.3, 1999, pp.453, 455.

See, for instance, Chung (n.30 above), pp.120–21; Timothy Savage and Nautilus Team, ‘NGO Engagement with North Korea: Dilemmas and Lessons Learned,’ Asian Perspective, Vol.26, No.1, 2002, pp.151–67; Hazel Smith, Five-year Review of the Caritas Program in the DPRK (Hong Kong: Caritas, 2001); Eric Weingartner, ‘NGO Contributions to DPRK Development: Issues for Canada and the International Community,’ UBC North Pacific Policy Papers No.7.

See Ahn Yirihay, ‘North Korea in 2001: At a Crossroads', Asian Survey, Vol.42, No.1, Jan–Feb. 2002; and Moon Chung-in and Kim Tae-Hwan, ‘Sustaining Inter-Korean Reconciliation: North–South Korea Cooperation,’ The Journal of East Asian Affairs, Fall/Winter 2001, p.240–41.

Ahn (see n.34 above), p.2.

Or so argue, quite convincingly, a range of conservative critics of the Sunshine Policy. See Park Tong Whan, ‘Nation versus State: The Dillema of Seoul’s Foreign Policy‐Making Towards Pyongyang, Pacific Focus, Vol.14, No.2, Fall 1999, pp.44–5.

Choi, Won-Ki. ‘Dealing with North Korea “as it is”, Nautilus Institute Policy Forum Online, accessed at www.nautilus.org/fora/security/9907K Choi.html, 1999.

Chung (n.30 above), p.104.

Ibid. p.125.

Park (see n.36 above), p.51.

See Ministry of Unification, ‘Overview of Intra-Korean Interchange & Cooperation’, http://152.99.76.131/en. For interesting interpretations of these data see Marcus Noland, Avoiding the Apocalypse: The Future of the two Koreas (Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, 2000) and Park, (n.36 above), pp.53–61.

The same logic underlies the attempt at containing economic interactions with the outside world to controllable ‘special economic zones’, initially at Rajin-Seonbong and now, as planned, at a second site in Sinuiju. See James Cotton, ‘A Radical Experiment: The Evidence is in from North Korea's Rajin-Seonbong Area’, Harvard Asia Pacific Review, Vol.2, No.1, 1997–98, pp.57–60; and Lee Young-jong, ‘North names Sinuiju special economic zone,’ JoongAng Ilbo, 20 Sept. 2002.

Cited in Oh and Hassig (n.3 above), p.108.

See Park (n.36 above), p.45.