Messages of peace written by visitors hang from a tree in the exhibition center of Aegibong Peace Ecopark in Gimpo, South Korea, in February. File Photo by Thomas Maresca/UPI |
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Aug. 14 (UPI) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is facing immense pressure and in 2023 and 2024 has implemented major policy changes due to his failed promises to the Korean people in the North. His nuclear weapons have not brought peace and prosperity, so he has declared the Republic of Korea (ROK) its enemy and has excised peaceful unification as the regime's strategic objective. However, Kim still seeks to dominate the peninsula under his rule to ensure survival of the regime. He continues to use political warfare and blackmail diplomacy strategies while preparing for the possible use of force to achieve his objectives.
The standout, but too often overlooked, success of the past seven decades has been deterrence. The ROK/U.S. alliance has prevented the resumption of war on the Korean peninsula, and it must continue to do so as the number one priority. However, nearly three decades of a denuclearization policy have failed despite several agreements that among normal states would have resulted in significant diplomatic breakthroughs. The failure is not due to the U.S. and ROK efforts. It is due solely to the nature, objectives, and strategy of the Kim family regime.
Given the changes evident in North Korea, it is the proverbial inflection point that requires examination of new policy options and strategy that can drive change or transformation on the Korean peninsula. Kim has the option to change his behavior and policies. If Kim does not change, the Korean people in the North need the opportunity to transform their situation and seek an end to the human rights abuses by achieving a free and unified Korea. Now is the time to begin to truly help them. The world can no longer simply admire this problem and hope that a catastrophic event never takes place.
The ROK is standing on the moral high ground by seeking peaceful unification. Since Kim has removed the hope of better lives for the Korean people by ending his policy of peaceful unification, it is up to the ROK, with the support of the United States and the international community, to help the Korean people, all the Korean people in the North and South, to achieve a free and unified Korea or in short, a United Republic of Korea (UROK).
The way ahead must consist of an aggressive public diplomacy campaign to engage the Korean people in the north. Yes, Kim continues to go to great lengths to deny outside information to the people. This has been identified as a major human rights abuse in the 2014 U.N. Commission of Inquiry. Kim sends a filth balloon barrage to the South to coerce the ROK into preventing Korean escapees who are ROK citizens from sending information to the North. There is no moral equivalent here.
While the Korean escapees should be encouraged and supported in their efforts, a broader public diplomacy campaign must be executed by the United States in support of the ROK and the Korean people in the North. The ROK and United States should together establish a Korean Escapee and Defector Information Institute to help the ROK, the United States, and the international community craft the appropriate themes and messages that will make a difference in the North.
The Korean people in the North need vast quantities of information, from news to entertainment, and especially stories about their future and unification. They need practical information: everything from how to improve agriculture and market activity to how to conduct collective action to create the conditions for transformation. The Korean people must receive facts about the outside world so they can gradually learn the truth. They must be given information to help them understand their universal human rights. Lastly, they need to hear the voices of escapees from the North.
The basis of a free and unified Korea comes from two sources: The 1953 Armistice Agreement and the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human rights. In Paragraph 60 of the Armistice, the military leaders called on the nations to provide a political solution to the Korea question, which is the unnatural division of the Korean peninsula. They recognized there is no military solution. In Article 21 the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the right of self-determination of government by the people is a universal human right for all people.
The way forward is to exert pressure on Kim Jong Un through sanctions, military readiness, cyber defense, public diplomacy, and a focus on human rights and the pursuit of a free and unified Korea. Kim Jong Un can be given the chance to change his behavior, while the Korean people can seek transformation inside North Korea that will lead to peaceful unification.
Why should the ROK/U.S. alliance and the international community support the people seeking unification? An escapee from North Korea, Kim Gumhyok of the North Korean Young Leaders Assembly recently gave an impassioned plea at the Hudson Institute making three important points:
Change is coming.
Make human rights a number priority.
Do not be disappointed or frustrated because change has not happened yet.
Change is coming to the North. The question is whether the Korean people in the South and the international community will help the people in the North to transform the regime and seek peaceful unification.
In the end, the international community must recognize that the only way to end the human rights abuses and the nuclear and military threats is through the establishment of a free and unified Korea. That is a Korea that is secure, stable, economically vibrant, and non-nuclear. It must be unified under a liberal constitutional form of government based on freedom and individual liberty, rule of law, human rights as determined by the Korean people, In short, a United Republic of Korea (UROK).
David Maxwell is a retired U.S. Army Special Forces Colonel and has spent more than 30 years in Asia as a practitioner and specializes in Northeast Asian Security Affairs and irregular, unconventional, and political warfare. He is the Vice President of the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy and a Senior Fellow at the Global Peace Foundation (where he focuses on a free and unified Korea). He is a member of the board of directors of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, and he is the editor of Small Wars Journal.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
