» Members of Solidarity for Peace And Reunification of Korea urge U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to initiate dialogue with North Korea as soon as possible in a demonstration in front of the U.S. Embassy in Seoul on February 17, in advance of Clinton’s upcoming visit to Korea later this week.

The Ministry of National Defense made the determination not to refer to North Korea as the “main enemy” but as a “direct and serious threat” in its 2008 Defense White Paper.

“It was determined that North Korea would be listed as a ‘direct and serious threat’ in the 2008 Defense White Paper that will be issued on February 20,” an authority at the ministry said Tuesday. In so doing, the ministry expressed its intention not to repeat a previous designation of North Korea as the country’s “main enemy,” in spite of repeated demands from conservatives since the launching of the Lee Myung-bak administration last year.

This approach by the Defense Ministry is a simple issue of expression regarding whether or not to call North Korea the country’s main enemy, and it is known to have reflected an understanding that this is separate from a readiness posture or the recognition of a realistic threat.

Previously, when Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee was asked at a general meeting of the parliamentary Defense Committee last September if the expression “main enemy” would be used again in the White Paper, he responded, “I don’t think it’s right for our society to lapse into the internal conflict that North Korea desires by using the expression ‘main enemy’ again.”

The expression “direct and serious threat” used in the 2008 White Paper represents a “composite” of the 2004 and 2006 Defense White Papers from the Roh Moo-hyun presidency. In the 2004 White Paper, North Korea was listed as a “direct military threat,” and in the 2006 White Paper, it was called a “serious threat.” Defense White Papers are released every two years.

The expression “main enemy” was first used in the 1995 Defense White Paper. This followed a statement made by North Korean representative Park Yong-su at the eighth inter-Korean working-level talks held at Panmunjom in March 1994, when he said, “If war breaks out, Seoul will become a sea of fire.” There are no other examples worldwide of nations being specified as “enemies” in Defense White Papers, and the expression was removed from the 2004 White Paper in consideration of the special nature of inter-Korean relations, combining exchange and cooperation with military antagonism.

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