Introduction: Is Normalization between US & DPRK Relations Achievable?

It’s an honor to be invited to participate in this Forum on US-Korea, specifically the US-Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (hereafter, DPRK or North Korea) relations in particular and Peace and Security issues in Northeast Asia in general. The fact that today’s Forum takes place just three days before the historic Inauguration of President Barrack H. Obama makes this gathering even more exciting and meaningful! In fact his presidency seemed to have already excited, galvanized and even fervently empowered hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people not only in the United States of America but also around the globe with full of hopes for change and for a better future.

            The world at present when a new and historic Obama era is about to begin seems full of hopes, dreams and optimistic expectations, even if there are simultaneously full of desperateness, despair, hopelessness, deep rage against grave injustices and war crimes that are committed all over the world, particularly in this very hour of Palestine! However, even under any desperate circumstances, no matter how dark, difficult and despairing situations may be, strangely enough people everywhere and all over, including Palestine, would never (absolutely never!) give up what they’ve believed in, hoped for and worked on.

            The following case can be an excellent example to show this kind of “never-dying optimism” (or in the language of DPRK people, “revolutionary optimism”) is not necessarily out of touch. This issue could be one of the hardest goals as probably one of the most improbable dreams of humanity, something we can’t even think of in the past, “The Logic of Zero!” Ivo Daalder and Jan Lodal in their most recent article for Foreign Affairs boldly argued for this seemingly once-unattainable goal of “Logic of Zero” which is “the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons articulated by former Secretary of State George Shultz, former Secretary of Defense William Perry, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and former Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee Sam Nunn in a January 2007 Wall Street Journal op-ed” (Daalder & Lodal, The Logic of Zero: Toward a World Without Nuclear Weapons, Foreign Affairs, November/December 2008). Since then, according to the authors, this seemingly once-impossible idea has been broadly supported and even “endorsed by no less than two-thirds of all living former secretaries of state, former secretaries of defense, and former national security advisors,” including the then-Senator, now soon-to-be President Barack Obama. So the authors furthered their case by suggesting:“Given this remarkable bipartisan consensus, the next president will have an opportunity to make the elimination of all nuclear weapons the organizing principle of US nuclear policy” (Daalder & Lodal). What a change! What a dream that was once unthinkable may someday finally come true! Let’s check the following excerpt from the authors:

“It [the logic of Zero] will take a real commitment, at the highest levels and beginning with the United States, to turn the logic of zero into a practical reality. Many obstacles remain along this path, but it is important that Washington take the lead in setting out on that journey. The steps outlined here …, reducing the US nuclear stockpile to 1,000 total weapons [from more than 25,000 nuclear weapons in the world, with Russia and the United States accounting for over 95 percent, and from nearly 3,000 tons of fissile material – enough to produce over 250,000 nuclear bombs], …, and pursuing a diplomatic strategy that seeks to build the largest possible coalition in favor of zero will take time to implement. … [T]hey should be implemented as soon as is practical. Together, they will provide a good basis for success down the road. Many obstacles remain along this path. But not to start down it now, step by step, would mean accepting the increasingly grave risk that another nuclear weapon will one day be used.” (From the last section of Logic of Zero, The Imperative of Zero)

Though we still live in a very dangerous and challenging time, however, people everywhere also simultaneously never give up to work building hopes around humanity’s once-improbable dreams such as “a world free of nuclear weapons,” someday peacefully-coexisting two independent States of Israel and Palestine while sharing evenly their Capitols in Jerusalem, and also someday peacefully-coexisting, co-prosperous, and eventually self-determinedly reunifying two independent States of North and South Korea on their shared ancestral peninsula.

This paper is written with this sort of bold hopes and dreams that once were improbable, at other times even difficult to freely talk about, but now could be possibly achieved, implemented, and finally realized in a foreseeable future. This very much unthinkable historic moment came into being through a movement that was in the beginning very much unnoticed, however later through this improbable movement laid a foundation upon which a new, fresh, and once-impossible African-American national leadership was borne to United States of [once-White only] America!

Hundreds of millions of nameless people around the world who seem to share the same aspirations with American people in this historic moment could be Africans, Bolivians, Cubans, Iraqis, Iranians, Palestinians, Venezuelans, and of course Koreans, too! However, those Koreans are not only from both Koreas in north and south, but also from all around the globe, particularly those two three million Korean-American populations who reside and work hard in US. I am sure most of them, too, also very much wish to share with the new President Obama of his “audacious hope for change” in their own respective local communities and work places around the county!

The Korea question as a whole, the US-DPRK relations in particular, now well over half a century, “the longest” stalemate in semi-war status in history between the two extremely different and imbalanced enemies, too, do need to be wholly and urgently addressed in order to overcome “a hundred years” of abnormality, as Gavan McCormack eloquently describes: “Normalcy has not been known in the area surrounding the Korean peninsula for a hundred years.” (Gavan McCormack, Target North Korea: Pushing North Korea to the Brink of Nuclear Catastrophe, p. 4)

This over half a century-old US-North Korea abnormal standoff, standing each other from probably the farthest opposite axes such as the first “the only global superpower” and the other so-called “one of the poorest and smallest nations,” would not need to wait for “another 8 years” to be worked out! The Korea question instead urgently asks all the responsible parties, including Japanese and South Korean conservative regimes whose ways of thinking, very much like a clone of Bush-Chaney’s neo-conservatism, are unbelievably “irrational, outdated, and reactionary,” come forward and promptly act upon the road map that’s been already-applied, -tested, and -proven to be right for a “win-win” solution, i.e., the normalization of abnormal US-North Korea relations.

With the arrival of Obama presidency expectations from all ends including North Korea seem undoubtedly high. But not necessarily everybody, unfortunately in the cases of present South Korean and Japanese governments agree. However, all who have genuinely wished for a better future in Korean peninsula in particular and Northeast Asian region in general dare to witness President Obama’s “audacious hope” to be fully realized in a form of harmonious, cooperative, and symbiotic, in other words, A “win-win” solution!

Will President Obama’s “Aggressive, Direct and Tough” Dialogue Be Fully Implemented?

“Dialogue is the only way to resolve all problems on the [Korean] peninsula.” (McCormack, p. 101)

“The incoming Obama administration is prepared to abandon President Bush´s doctrine of isolating Hamas by establishing a channel to the Islamist organization, … The move to open contacts with Hamas … would represent a definitive break with the Bush presidency´s ostracizing of the group. … the president-elect would not be bound by the Bush doctrine of isolating ... ‘This is going to be an administration that is committed to negotiating with critical parties on critical issues,’ they said. …  ‘Secret envoys, multilateral six-party talk-like approaches. The total isolation of Hamas that we promulgated under Bush is going to end,’ … ‘You could do something … multilateral. … going to be hard for the Neocons to swallow,’ … However, it is widely thought Obama will adopt a more even-handed approach once he is president. … prepared to adopt a policy that is tougher, fairer and smarter than both of his predecessors. … The willingness for conditional engagement with … marks a sharp break with the world view of the Bush administration. Obama has said repeatedly that restoring America´s image in the world would rank among the top priorities of his administration … He is expected to demonstrate that commitment to charting a new foreign policy within days … of key foreign policy areas: Iran, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, India-Pakistan, and North Korea.” (Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian UK, Jan. 08, 2009)

Like many in the world, many consciously committed Koreans, too, hope to change their century-old status-quo of abnormality to a new era of “normalcy!” Some, however, can arguably question if the incoming Obama administration could make that change happen during the first year of his historic Presidency. But I am one of those who believe, though cautious and prudent, that change could be a strong probability within a near future. In order to further explore this claim, this paper intends to specifically deal with another question if both US and DPRK will actively engage in an “aggressive, direct and tough” (the language of new President Obama) bilateral diplomacy which is in essence an act of dialogue. Again I am an optimist who may believe, though cautious, in that new future in which that direct dialogue could soon take place under a new, fresh and reasonable leadership of President Obama!

As we see in the case of above-quoted The Guardian UK story on the incoming Obama administration’s new policy on the US-Israeli and –Palestine relations through “a definite break with the Bush president’s ostracizing policies” of the group [Hamas], by adopting an “aggressive and tough diplomacy through direct dialogues, engagements and negotiations with critical parties on critical issues,” and by taking an “even-handed and fairer approaches” to the conflicts, it is going to be a welcoming and good news not only for the Middle Eastern people but also Koreans, Iranians, and many others around the world.

Now going back to the Korea question, that real dialogue, if and when it really takes place, could be probably one of the first historic acts of real diplomacy that seemed unprecedented, hardly ever being tried or implemented by any of the past US governments (except one or two as in the case of the late latter part of the Clinton administration when he seemed to have really tried to work out even by dispatching the highest-ever government official in the history of US-North Korea relations, then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to Pyongyang) during the entire Cold War era that officially began after the signing of fragile Armistice Agreement of the Korean War in July 1953. Therefore, I would strongly contend that (very much expected!) act of real dialogue by the incoming administration must not be in any way A repetitious act of unilateralism of the “imperial Bush-Cheney presidency” (the language of Tom Engelhardt’s The Imperial Presidency, The Nation, December 11, 2008). For their unilateral and one-sided talk is not an act of dialogue but of imperial monologue! That’s like President Bush’s infamously arbitrary “Us (good) versus them (evil)” mentality of monologue that was often accompanied by arrogance, coercion and irrationality!

The first-ever real dialogue the new American government, therefore, should be something like consensus-building through humble acts of genuine dialoging with respect to others the President-elect Obama himself had masterfully applied during two years of his historic presidential campaign. As well-known, his genuinely bold, fresh, honest and humble attitude in dialoguing with ordinary peoples around the country and, to some extent, the world had movingly mobilized tens of millions of American people. Paradoxically, one could argue, the 8 years of imperial acts of Bush-Chaney monologue which have “repeatedly deceived, disrespected, divided, plundered and thereby ridiculed their own people (whom they supposed to serve and honor!), and many other parts of the world” made the first African-American being elected to the historic presidency! Indeed the new American president seemed to have wonderfully mastered how to work with others by humbly engaging with ordinary people, seemingly free from racially stereotypical prejudices and prejudgments, through direct dialoguing and consensus-building with Others, and if needed, even with supposed-to-be-enemies such as Cubans, North Koreans, Iranians, Venezuelans, and so on!    

It’s been discussed daily in the press if the Obama administration could promptly implement what he and his campaign have publicly promised during and after his presidential campaign. Many argue even the new Obama administration, compounded by the worst financial meltdown since the 1929 Great Depression, may not be able to carry out what he’s been saying in the first couple of years in power. Therefore many also doubt the Korea question may not be given enough and prompt attentions in the first years of Obama Presidency due to those financial and other domestic and international crises. Is it so?

Today, at this very moment, the world is forced to face and urgently deal with another catastrophic conflict in the Middle East where ongoing war crimes are being committed daily by the mightier Israeli troops whose killing machines, mostly funded by US taxpayers’ money, have continuously bombarded, destroyed and slaughtered defenseless and helpless Palestinian citizens since December 27, 2008. So the Palestine question may come first with a sense of urgency to his presidential desk in his first days of work at the White House to deal with. I wouldn’t unnecessarily dispute this argument. Instead President Obama should be able to promptly act upon, since the United States of America has been principally the major, if not the only, financial, military and political sponsor of Israeli military and colonial occupation of Palestine for four decades now, to save hundreds of innocent Palestinians (and, of course, innocent Israeli citizens from Hamas’ coarse rockets, too!) from madness of warmongers, mostly from the Israeli side.

Can and Will the new American President Obama Stay on Course within the Principles of Mutual Respect, Peaceful Coexistence and Co-Prosperity?

Even while the new American administration promptly acts on the dangerously volatile Israel-Palestine conflict, however, the Obama White House still can and also should be able to simultaneously work on other urgent issues such as the Korea question. For it can be, as many claim, dealt relatively a lot easier and faster than other major global conflicts such as Afganistan, Iraq, Iran and other compelling questions. Compared to the latter conflicts, the former (Korea) question could be not only easier to handle but also possibly get to a surprisingly early exit with a “win-win” solution. Once that happens, it could be very much productive with immediate and immense benefits at many levels and aspects, to both US and DPRK in particular, Korean peninsula and the Northeast Asian region in general.

It would be most desirable and ideal if the new President Obama could immediately engage in a real dialogue, as his forte, with DPRK “without any preconditions,” as he proposed during his campaign, in order to move forward, not backward as his two previous administrations unfortunately did equally in their first six years in power. If President Obama, differing from his two predecessors, could do that, I am quite certain his administration could produce enough real “win-win” solutions that can be immensely beneficial to both US and North Korea and other participating countries in Six-Party Talks.

The Obama movement, as I’ve called this way from the very beginning of his historic presidential campaign, has already empowered both ordinary and concerned (conscious) people around the globe to have a more hopeful thinking, to share with him his “audacious hope” for a better future, and to have dreams for real change in their respective life and work contexts.

Whatever new President Obama will do and have to do in his next four years in the White House, therefore, can be characterized as something to wrestle with that problem of the terrible abnormality of America in its past relations with Korea peninsula as well as other compelling and urgent issues such as Palestine, Iraq, Iran and others, and rest of the world. Hopefully, through his fresh and innovative leadership, though however limited it may be, as new command-in-chief (of still militarily the most powerful nation on earth!) but not as the command-in-chief of arrogant aggressor but of reconciler and peace-builder instead, I do believe the Korea question (and others as well!) can move forward to the point of normalcy. However, as emphasized before, the Korea question as “a relatively easier challenge” compared to other global conflicts America daily faces can be quickly worked out, if the new Obama administration stays on course based upon his well-known and even well-published philosophy, life style and work principles such as, in my own wording, humble engagements with Others through direct dialoguing, consensus-building, trust-building, calmness under any duress, endurance and patience under any circumstances, but, most importantly, rationality that his immediate predecessor has terribly lacked until the last days of his “failed presidency.”

If the new American president can stay on his principled course under this very much optimistic and positive scenario, though neither naïve nor romantic, most ongoing global issues and challenges including the Korea question can be worked out sooner or later, some even within a foreseeable future, or others a little later but eventually would come along as well. Possibly without much labor, sweat, blood, without many deaths, destructions and struggles! Many, such as us in this room, would like to believe the normalization of US and North Korea relations can be exactly the case in terms that neither US nor DPRK should further sweat, blood, and struggle as long as both sides faithfully engage in ongoing and genuine dialogues, based upon the following principles: mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and co-prosperity.

Then the Obama Era Would Mean End of Imperial America as a Major Global Aggressor?

After the WWII and particularly throughout the entire “Cold War” era, the United States of America has distinguished itself as a major global aggressor, far exceedingly other major powers. This identification of US as a, if not the only, major hegemonic power until this very day in the beginning of 21^st century seems not an arbitrary or wrongful accusation, identification or demonization of America, if people were to be familiar with real histories of its major wars in the Korean peninsula, Vietnam, and Iraq in all of which US has been, needless to say, the major principal player.

The American identity as a major global aggressor during the Cold War has become further deteriorated by the Bush-Chaney’s War on Terror ideology of neo-conservatism, identifying itself with “the only global superpower.” The image of “only global superpower” as a “further aggressive, arrogant and arbitrary power” (in a very overt or “imperial” way unlike the past when they’d tried to conceal or clandestinely do) has further revealed its fundamental characters as “arrogant aggressor” rather than “humble reconciler, peace-builder or justice-upholder.” It’s well-known that Bush-Chaney’s “cooperate America backed by military might” has been called the “imperial Bush-Chaney presidency.” Their “only superpower” mentality seemed even not cared for their illegal actions and repeated violations of their own domestic and other international laws, regulations, and disrespectful abandonments of inter-governmental and international commitments to international treaties such as Kyoto Global Climate Protocol, International Criminal Court, and so on.

Some of the key characters of a major global aggressor may be summarily identified with the following socio-economic-political realities and strategies, and cultural-philosophical-religious concepts and ideologies: “Military-Industrial-Media Complex” (David Barstow, The New York Times, November 29, 2008), a classic colonial strategy of “divide and conquer,” most distinctively (some Eastern but mostly Western) dualistic ways of thinking such as “black and white,” “good and evil,” “West versus non-West,” (most distinctly claimed by Samuel Huntington in his ‘Clash of Civilizations’), or “Us versus them” mentalities (infamously employed by the Bush-Chaney Presidency), ultra-conservative Christian fundamentalism, (mostly White) racism, anticommunism throughout the Cold War, and now anti-terrorism during Bush-Chaney’s imperial ruling which effectively replaced its preceding ideology, i.e., anticommunism.

Bruce Cumings’ following discussion on concepts of evil and dualism which he quotes from a sociologist who also argues about one of the most distinctively controversial Western concepts, ideologies and philosophies, i.e., dualism which sees the world by continually dividing almost everything in a either or framework, and from ultra-simplistic worldviews:

“’The West divides, chopping things – and people – up. The East creates relationships modeled on the family.’ So writes sociologist Fred Alford, in a fascinating account of Korean conceptions of evil. Evil comes from the creation of dualisms and oppositions. A Buddhist friend told him, ‘You Americans destroyed the [American] Indians because of dualism… You are always fighting and finding an enemy. … A society like this has no place for evil; in fact Koreans don’t have a conception of evil: ‘Evil couldn’t exist because Koreans have created a universe in which there is no place for it.’ Alford is talking about South Korea, not the North, but he helps us to understand that vexing family state. After sixty years, it’s high time for Americans to find out if Koreans don’t have a lot to teach us” (Cumings, North Korea Another Country, pp. 204-205)

The above-discussed America’s three major wars, however, are only some of the most known major military conflicts in which former and present colonial powers of the West in general and of the US in particular have wielded their imperialistic policies and military aggressions in the name of “democracy, freedom and human rights.” But there seem to have been many unknown and hidden conflicts and struggles around the world where those same colonial tactics and strategies have been viciously applied to further exploit, oppress, and slaughter mostly of non-white, non-West, and non-Christian populace in third world contexts, as the world history of last five centuries plainly witnesses.

Those same former and present colonial powers have never voluntarily restrained their greed and ill-wills. They were defeated, deterred, or stopped only by organized, self-reliant and sustained resistances as Noam Chomsky has consistently advocated for. Historically it seems very true those ill-willed forces seemed to have never voluntarily ceased to rest or otherwise continued to plunder whatever they could take either clandestinely or often overtly such as in the case of US invasion of Iraq in the beginning of 21^st Century! With emergence of 9 11 (the first terror incident on American soil), however, the same Western hegemonic powers led by the United States exploited further and soon turned their tactics from covert to more overt actions, throughout the arrogant, hypocritical and disastrous Bush-Chaney period. They literally forced both their own country that they were supposed to serve!) and the world (also supposed to work respectfully with on democratic, equal and mutual terms!) to be subjugated under their imperial ideology of “neo-conservatism” which, fully assisted by other aggressive tactics such as neo-liberalism in economy, can be identified with “unilateralism and pre-emptive military attacks, and regime change, economic sanctions and US State Dept’s (“laughable”) list of terrorist countries” in accordance with its “hypocritically double-standard” foreign relations, or, if needed, overtly employing various sorts of illegal economic, political and military methods to achieve their goals in the name of “national interests” by any means necessary.

All this displays a very bad image of “ugly America” and its lowest standing in the eyes of world’s majority population might have enough ridiculed, thereby awakened many conscious and peace-loving Americans including President-elect Obama himself during his senatorial responsibility. It’s a well-known goal the new American president is going to work hard to recover its lost, ugly and terribly-battered image. How can it be done? Will it work as he hopes for? What should be done in order for his new administration to achieve its stated goal? Or to bring a real change in order for his White House to end America’s past and present history of ugliness, absurdities and irrationalities? 

Is North Korea a “Garrison state”? Why?

Cumings characterizes North Korea a “garrison state.” He himself then questions and answers: “Why is it a garrison state?” He seems to give one of the most honest, objective and persuasive answers: “Primarily because of the holocaust that the North experienced during the Korean War [!]”(p. 2). It seems Cumings, Selig Harrison and Gavan McCormack are a few among not many Korea scholars and experts in the West who’ve come forward as honest, objective and persuasive as possible, particularly free from stereotypical prejudices of (White) racism, though not all the time, admit what’d happened to people in Korean peninsula, particularly the northern part of Koreans during and after the Korean War.

Thus let me share some of those three most-respected Korea scholars’ accounts on the “holocaust” of the Korean War and the subsequently antagonistic relations of US-DPRK standoff, particularly why DPRK has become a “garrison state” (Cumings), “fossilized guerrilla state, or partisan state” (McCormack):

“’The Forgotten War’ might better be called an unknown war. As an historian of that war, what is indelible is the extraordinary destructiveness of the American air campaign against North Korea, ranging from the widespread and continuous use of firebombing (mainly with napalm), to threats to use nuclear and chemical weapons, and finally to the destruction of huge North Korean dams in the final stages of the war. Yet this episode is largely unknown even to historians, let alone to the average citizen, and it never gets mentioned in press analysis of the North Korean nuclear problem in the past decade.” (Cumings, p. 15)

“We [US] remain technically at war with North Korea. The armistice signed on July 27, 1953, stilled the guns, but it brought no formal peace. Instead the Korean War is one of the longest-running conflicts remaining in the world, perhaps the longest in its yearly continuity…” (Ibid., p. 3)

            Cumings seems not the only one who try hard consciously and exceptionally honest in his admission of “war crimes” and other types of “crimes of humanity” his own country might have committed against Korean people during the 1950-53 War. The other promin