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The paradox of East Asian peace.

Article Excerpt
At the center of East Asia lies the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) on the Korean peninsula. The DMZ has been called the most dangerous place on earth. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers face one another across this divide. And yet, the DMZ is also the lifeline between North and South Korea. It connects the two countries by way of the Kaesong Industrial Complex. Electricity, transportation, and communications lines connect the two sides across this dangerous rift. Perhaps most paradoxically, the DMZ itself is a quiet, largely undisturbed zone that is home to perhaps the greatest biological diversity on the peninsula. Unification is, of course, a life-and-death issue for Koreans. It is therefore fitting that the DMZ is a life-and-death zone.

A similar paradox lies at the center of the regional peace and security structure that the six countries negotiating the nuclear impasse with North Korea are considering for Northeast Asia. The proposal, which is still very much at the idea stage, occupies the attention of one of the five working groups in the Six Party talks. Will the two Koreas, Japan, China, Russia, and the United States create a kind of organization for security and cooperation in Asia? There are many reasons why such a peace regime is an impossibility. Neither the United States nor North Korea, for different but related reasons, is keen about such a system (despite much rhetoric to the contrary). At the same time, such a peace regime is inevitable. South Korea, China, and Russia, again for different but related reasons, support this outcome.

The easy solution to this seeming paradox is to distinguish between short-term and long-term perspectives. Given the different motivations and interests of the negotiating parties in the Six-Party Talks, a regional security system is nearly impossible in the short term. Over the long term, however, the logic of negotiations and the compelling economic and geopolitical interests of the different parties make a regional stability system inevitable.

Shifting the optic is useful but does not offer a sufficient resolution to the paradox of impossibility/inevitability. We are left in the dark as to when short-term considerations segue into long-term realities. After all, the impossibility of a peace regime has been with us for over nearly six decades, which is quite a long time. And the inevitability of a peace regime could, with the implementation of the working groups of the Six Party Talks, be borne out as early as next year, which is quite short term.

To understand which will triumph--impossibility or inevitability--we must look at a different set of criteria. Ultimately, after an assessment of the different push-pull factors, the discussion will zero in on the critical role played by Japan. The country in the region with the worst record on peace and security in the 20th century may well play the decisive role in establishing a regional peace and security order in the 21st century. If the inevitable indeed happens, it still may turn out to be impossible, and this will be the final paradox. If all the stars align and the six countries establish a peace and security mechanism for Northeast Asia, their continued high levels of military spending will make such a mechanism largely ineffectual.

An Impossible Dream

Before any peace agreement can replace the current armistice on the Korean peninsula, before any peace regime can be constructed on the foundation of a peninsular peace agreement, North Korea must give up its nuclear weapons. The Bush administration has predicated any substantive steps toward a peace regime on complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear program. Let's assume for the moment that this is a non-negotiable demand. Although the Bush administration reversed other demands--on bilateral discussions and the sequencing...

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