Virtually all commentators on the ongoing saga of North Korea and its standoff with the US over Kim Jong-un and his late father Kim Jung-Il’s quest to develop nuclear weapons and the US-led opposition to it have focused on the bizarre behavior of both tyrants in what is best described as a hereditary monarchy with quasi-religious overtones. The North Korean dynasty is undoubtedly one of the most ruthless regimes of modern history regarding treatment of its own people and it would certainly be wonderful if their military arsenal did not contain nukes.
Yet, the two Kims’ stance should perhaps not be viewed as irrational, given the clear video evidence of what happens to dictators who either never had or eventually lose the blessings of the US---Saddam and Qaddafi---if they do not have nuclear weapons or give up plans to develop them. Kim Jong-un explicitly refers to Qaddafi as an object lesson.
Moreover, while the dynasty may be over-the-top regarding its sadistic forms of brutality and the eccentricities of its leaders, it would be an error to simply focus on personalities without considering that its legitimacy may be rooted in something more than just fear, but what hardly anyone speaks of, very likely out of ignorance: the period before and during the Korean war.
The best overview of this history of this period is University of Chicago’s Distinguished Service Professor and Dept Chair, historian Bruce Cumming’s The Korean War: A History. I will summarize it, but reading the short 250 page book is highly recommended. Korea was a land with a long history of autonomy and a vibrant culture. When Japan colonized it in 1910 it was blessed by the US. Teddy Roosevelt thought they would “modernize” what was a feudal system, but one with a separate language, culture and distinct political structures. Japan imposed its rule, destroyed existing institutions and even tried to eradicate the native language. All of this led to feelings of hatred of the Japanese and those Koreans who allied with them---predominantly the existing elites.
When Japan lost its colonies after defeat in World War II, the US became the occupying power in the southern part of Korea. Kim Il-sung, a Korean Communist, living in the north, was a leading guerilla fighter against the Japanese and he as well as Koreans throughout the entire country fully expected Korea would be turned over to Koreans and those who had collaborated during the war and before with Japan would be punished, or at least removed from power. He was not a puppet of Moscow or Mao. Not of Ho Chi Minh’s stature, but highly respected. Instead, the US brought in a US-based “leader” of Korean ancestry, who had been in exile for years, Syngman Rhee, to lead a new country called South Korea. Korea was “divided” by the US occupiers, arbitrarily using the 38th parallel as the demarcation point, a line rejected by Koreans of all stripes. Moreover, Rhee, an autocrat, relied upon a leadership team composed entirely of those who were collaborators with the Japanese. When resistance developed in the area governed by Rhee and his henchman, extreme brutality was used to repress it. Sounds like Vietnam, right? Diem was the Vietnamese version of Rhee.
Eventually, the Korean War started. The northerners had wanted to unify what had always been one country. The southern leadership wanted to re-unify as well. The US was content to leave the country divided—as in Vietnam a decade later when French colonialism ended and we became the new external power. The north probably “invaded” the southern region of what was always one country, but it’s immaterial and some think it was the other way around. Rhee and Kim Il-sung both wanted a war to re-unify on their terms.
The Korean War was as brutal as a civil war could be and atrocities were committed by both sides, though Cummings estimates the south was significantly more likely to slaughter civilians, perhaps 100,000 to the North’s 30,000 victims. What about the US, especially after it entered the war at a point where the southern regime was nearly defeated? Rhee’s soldiers lacked the morale of those of the north, because the regime was considered illegitimate. Again, just like in Vietnam. The US had to save the day.
Turns out the US dropped more bomb tonnage during the three years of the war than we did against Japan during WWII and the widespread use of incendiary bombs destroyed between 40 and 90 percent of every city in the country. We also bombed dams which flooded railways, rice fields and highways. Napalm, as it happens, was first used in Korea, with more than 30,000 tons dropped. There were mega-Korean versions of My Lai as well---the infamous Taejon Massacre of 4,000 prisoners by South Korean troops with US ones standing by; Nogun, where American GIs slaughtered hundreds of civilians under a bridge and blamed it on the North.
The South Korean governments after the 1953 Armistice have continued to be populated by Japanese collaborators and perpetrators of atrocities during the Korean War or the children of those responsible who fully embraced their parents’ actions. The recently deposed President of South Korea is the daughter of Chung Hee Park, the brutal dictator of South Korea from the end of the Rhee regime—he had to flee the country again after riots in 1960---until his 1979 assassination by a North Korean sympathizer. Park had proudly fought for the Japanese Emperor in Manchukuo in WWII. At the same time, Park did have talks with Kim Il-Sung about a future peaceful unification of Korea, which were actively discouraged by the US. In fact, talks between leaders of both Koreas regarding peaceful re-unification have periodically been undertaken, though all failed. Neither side seeks to re-start a civil war for re-unification. Kim Il-sung once proposed a unified country with a federal system in which each part of Korea had autonomy regarding politics.
While the history outlined above is generally unknown in the US it is not forgotten in North Korea. Though Kim Jong-un is 33, many of those who have been at the apex of the system are quite old and remember full well the Korean war as a civil war with America siding with Japanese collaborators and inflicting unspeakable damage to the North. Moreover, ordinary citizens, however mistreated they are by the regime, know that this aspect of the history drummed into them is fact-based. Virtually all living North Koreans probably had relatives die during the Korean War, many in grotesque ways. Indeed, South Korea has had a South Africa-inspired truth and reconciliation process uncovering of all the atrocities of that era and assigned the bulk of the blame to the American-backed regime and the US itself. The upshot is that even if Kim Jong-un’s nuclear program is primarily for the self-preservation of a failed regime, which he fears might someday be overthrown by the US, through attack, subversion if it loosens its grip, or by internal rot, his “subjects” might also worry about the US’ intentions, even if the US has none that would be threatening at this point.
In fact, the US, if rationality prevails, probably wouldn’t be unhappy if Korea remains divided. If unified its estimated it would have an economy larger than Japan’s by 2050 and our economic system is having too much competition already. Among those in South Korea, enthusiasm for re-unification has diminished, especially among the younger generation which is more concerned with maintaining great economic growth at home than absorbing an impoverished population with a culture that has little resonance in the South. Of course, rationality doesn’t always prevail and the US democratically-elected Donald Trump’s megalomania may rival that of the three generations of Kims.
Since no one seriously thinks Kim is planning to use nuclear strikes as an offensive weapon to conquer the South or anyplace else, or do an unprovoked attack on the US, perhaps the best thing to do is seriously engage him in negotiations to formally end the Korean War, forswear any attempts on any parties’ part to subvert either Korea---perhaps reviving Kim Il-sung’s idea of a united country with federalism and two autonomous political systems---and hope the North evolves by its own devices away from dynastic rule. This has failed in the past for various reasons, including the nuclear issue, but maybe that does not have to be a critical stumbling block, especially since there may be no viable alternative. China will only go so far against an historical ally who helped fight the Japanese. The last thing they want is massive refugees flooding China if Korea collapses. South Korea does not want to be held hostage and does not worry the North is about to attack them unless the US attacks.