North Korea: Whose Interests Are at a Crossroads?

For a journalist, a punchy and memorable headline is often more important than the text which comes below. It is periodically fashionable to compare the Korean Peninsula to the Balkan Peninsula, hinting at the Balkans’ role in periodically involving the whole of Europe in difficult military conflicts.

Nevertheless, regardless of all the difficulties of such a comparison, there is some measure of truth in it — and not just because Korea and the Balkans are surrounded by water on three sides.

Many events in the Balkans during World War I and World War II and after the fall of the Soviet Union were quite irrational. They did not yield to any rational calculations, were difficult to predict and could explode completely unexpectedly — or on the contrary, could calm down the situation. It is not for nothing that Bismarck said that war in Europe would come out of some foolish thing in the Balkans, but he could not have guessed at the scale of it.

And it’s not that Pesiglavtsy — wolf-like characters from a Russian fairytale — whose logic defies any comprehension, live in the Balkans. The point is the strategic geographical position of the peninsula, which contains transportation routes that are critical to the entire continent, both on land and at sea. The intertwining of the interests of every European and international player creates uneven and unpredictable circumstances within the region. The situation in the Balkans is always far from the point of equilibrium in some notional “potential well” and always threatens to jump out of it, dramatically shifting the course of events.

In the same way, the Korean Peninsula represents a critically important region for all of Southeast Asia. And in the same way, it is located in the crossroads of the interests of every regional power and international actor. This alone gives us a reason for the lack of peace on the peninsula, given the relative equality of opposing forces and states. The question of who is guilty of starting the new round of tension at first seems similar to the question of whether the chicken or the egg came first. It does not matter whether the cause of the current crisis is the U.S.’ provocation, South Korea or some provocative action from North Korea. Every party has always conducted their politics in response to the actions of the other side.

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs have, of course, come in response to the clear aggression against it for the whole period that the two Koreas have been divided. The actions of the U.S. and South Korea have similarly come in response to the threat from the north. To get a good picture of the last 50 or 60 years, we can imagine children pushing each other, each saying “you started it!” but neither can remember exactly how their quarrel began.

The actions of North Korea we can understand, of course. The nervous reactions toward openly hostile maneuvers and exercises near its border are quite natural. No American would be comfortable looking at some submarine surfacing near the Brooklyn Bridge and engaging in a little target practice. So why is North Korea’s behavior in this case so strange?

China’s reaction to all the exercises on the peninsula is also quite natural and painful. The flight time of the smallest, least powerful rocket to the Chinese coast or, worse, to the capital of the country is so small that any mistake made during the exercises could easily turn into an irreversible situation, one which cannot be helped with a simple apology.

Indeed, it is silly mistakes and accidents that pose the biggest threat and accompany each round of crisis on the Korean Peninsula. It is they that are driving the situation to the very edge and giving it the highest intensity; it may be this very small groove on the edge of the potential well that will cause the ball to pop out and translate its potential energy into a full-scale kinetic conflict. Nobody would come out the better from such a series of events.

The saddest thing is that there is no constructive way out of this situation. Korea will remain an important crossroads in Southeast Asia. Taking into account the period of strained international circumstances and the hints of a conflict between the U.S. and China, it is ridiculous to suggest that this strategically important peninsula would be left out of the proceedings. And this means that even if the current crisis is somehow resolved peacefully, it will nonetheless occur again in the near future. And again, everything will depend upon whether some silly accident will happen, or whether everything will blow over … until the next time.