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rfmcdonaldI went over to Dragan Antulov's blog at a time when I should have been working, but then, Dragan's someone I've known for a long time from the USENET newsgroup soc.history.what-if.
Recently, he made an interesting observation about anti-Americanism, that the "rising anti-Americanism in the world [...] manifests even in the country that owes its very existence to U.S. military might."
But then, South Koreans are probably right to fear that some people in the Bush Administration would be quite happy to wage a Second Korean War down to the last Korean, and the vulnerability of Seoul--surely the single largest metropolis in the developed world most vulnerable to deadly military assault since the end of the Cold War--to North Korean artillery is in itself an excellent reason not to be particulary hawkish. Never mind the fact that north and south, despite Korea's rather divided, fragmented, and tragic 20th century, do see themselves as part of a single nation and aren't particularly interested in fratiride.
(Note--I said "not particularly." I don't think that Kim Il Sung is a particularly pleasant fellow; quite the contrary, in fact.)
North Korea, when it comes down off of its juche high, is going to be massively dependent upon South Korea come reunification, so much so that reunified Korea could be aptly termed a greater South Korea--East Germany was assimilated wholesale into West Germany come reunification, and despite its massive flaws it was a fairly well-industrialized country that was the high-technology centre of the Soviet bloc. North Korea, well--as Jonathan Edelstein and I agreed on soc.history.what-if when the topic of an alternate-historical reunification in the 1990's came up, North Korea could easily be depopulated as shantytowns of North Korean immigrants form outside of Seoul and Pusan and the other nuclei of the South Korean economic miracle. Ah well, at least land prices in the north will be cheap. (Me, I'm curious as to what reunified Korea will do with North Korea nuclear weapons.)
South Korea owes the fact of its survival and its economic prosperity to the United States. If not for the US-led UN military intervention in the Korean War, then we could well have ended up with a unified Korea under the dynastic rule of the Kims that probably wouldn't have enjoyed an economic boom like South Korea or even mainland China; Korea could well have been North Korea writ large, and we'd all have been the poorer for that.
It seems, though, from reading the American press, that not a few Americans think that South Koreans should be indefinitely grateful for American aid earlier in the century and that they should suspend their critical judgement and their concerns for their homeland. Yet how can there be an alliance that isn't based on mutual respect for the limits of the other partner?
As South Korea goes, perhaps (hopefully not) the world. Ah, for a multilateralism with teeth.
Recently, he made an interesting observation about anti-Americanism, that the "rising anti-Americanism in the world [...] manifests even in the country that owes its very existence to U.S. military might."
But then, South Koreans are probably right to fear that some people in the Bush Administration would be quite happy to wage a Second Korean War down to the last Korean, and the vulnerability of Seoul--surely the single largest metropolis in the developed world most vulnerable to deadly military assault since the end of the Cold War--to North Korean artillery is in itself an excellent reason not to be particulary hawkish. Never mind the fact that north and south, despite Korea's rather divided, fragmented, and tragic 20th century, do see themselves as part of a single nation and aren't particularly interested in fratiride.
(Note--I said "not particularly." I don't think that Kim Il Sung is a particularly pleasant fellow; quite the contrary, in fact.)
North Korea, when it comes down off of its juche high, is going to be massively dependent upon South Korea come reunification, so much so that reunified Korea could be aptly termed a greater South Korea--East Germany was assimilated wholesale into West Germany come reunification, and despite its massive flaws it was a fairly well-industrialized country that was the high-technology centre of the Soviet bloc. North Korea, well--as Jonathan Edelstein and I agreed on soc.history.what-if when the topic of an alternate-historical reunification in the 1990's came up, North Korea could easily be depopulated as shantytowns of North Korean immigrants form outside of Seoul and Pusan and the other nuclei of the South Korean economic miracle. Ah well, at least land prices in the north will be cheap. (Me, I'm curious as to what reunified Korea will do with North Korea nuclear weapons.)
South Korea owes the fact of its survival and its economic prosperity to the United States. If not for the US-led UN military intervention in the Korean War, then we could well have ended up with a unified Korea under the dynastic rule of the Kims that probably wouldn't have enjoyed an economic boom like South Korea or even mainland China; Korea could well have been North Korea writ large, and we'd all have been the poorer for that.
It seems, though, from reading the American press, that not a few Americans think that South Koreans should be indefinitely grateful for American aid earlier in the century and that they should suspend their critical judgement and their concerns for their homeland. Yet how can there be an alliance that isn't based on mutual respect for the limits of the other partner?
As South Korea goes, perhaps (hopefully not) the world. Ah, for a multilateralism with teeth.
