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President Yoon Suk-yeol shakes hands with Shin Won-sik after appointing him as defense minister on Oct. 11 at the presidential office in Yongsan. (presidential office pool photo)

It’s plain ignorance — the lack of knowledge or insight.

The remarks that are being made not only by South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol but also by his Cabinet ministers and the academics in their orbit betray a pathetic degree of ignorance, which makes them all the more dangerous.

“The no-fly zone established by the Sept. 19 comprehensive military agreement seriously constrains our ability to conduct real-time surveillance of indications of an imminent provocation on the front with North Korea,” South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik asserted on Oct. 10.

On Sept. 19, 2018, South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo and North Korean Minister of the People’s Armed Forces No Kwang-chol signed a military agreement that was designed to support the implementation of the Panmunjom Declaration, which had been concluded in the inter-Korean summit on April 27 of the same year.

But according to Shin, that agreement worked against South Korea’s interest. He claimed that the stipulated ban on flights by fixed-wing aircraft (such as jet fighters and spy planes) within 20-40 km from the Military Demarcation Line made it difficult to monitor the front for signs of a North Korean provocation. For that reason, the defense minister said he would push to quickly suspend the agreement.

How truly ignorant those remarks are! Shin couldn’t make such claims if he knew what the agreement actually said. And if reading the agreement was too much of a struggle for him, surely someone could have sketched the main points on a map for him.

The agreement in question, formally known as the “Agreement on the Implementation of the Historic Panmunjom Declaration in the Military Domain,” applies equally to South and North Korea. The no-flight zone applies to 40 km south of the Military Demarcation Line in the east and 20 km south of the line in the west, but the zone also covers the same amount of area north of the line. In other words, the North Korean military is under the same restrictions on surveillance activity as the South Korean military.

It’s unfair for the defense minister to pretend to be unaware of the obvious fact that the arms control agreement imposes the same restrictions on the two sides. And it’s ignorant to speak as if the South Korean military is the only one facing these disadvantages.

In the inter-Korean military pact, the two sides explored “various measures to prevent armed conflict in every domain, including land, air and sea.” They agreed on suspending military exercises around the military demarcation line, banning flights in airspace above the line, implementing measures to prevent unintended armed clashes and setting up a system of communication.

Furthermore, they agreed to find ways to build military confidence while turning the Demilitarized Zone into a zone for peace and making a “maritime peace zone” in the area around the Military Demarcation Line in the Yellow Sea.

Thus, the agreement didn’t just restrict the activities of the South Korean military; rather, South and North Korea agreed to restrict the same military activities and take the same reciprocal measures.

“It’s the duty of the defense minister to work proactively to overcome any restrictions on defending Koreans’ lives and property. I will seek to suspend the Sept. 19 inter-Korean military agreement,” Shin said.

Is Shin arguing that it’s also the duty of the defense minister to lift restrictions on the North Korean military? Or is he really so ignorant as to claim that suspending the agreement would only lift restrictions on the South Korean military, and not the North Korean military?

Ahn Cheol-soo, a lawmaker with the People Power Party, made an even more ignorant statement during a parliamentary probe on Oct. 11. “We have seriously degraded our military readiness against North Korea while deliberately offsetting our surveillance and reconnaissance advantage over the North,” Ahn said, referring to the inter-Korean military agreement.

It’s true that South Korea has an overwhelming edge over the North in terms of surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities. That means that South Korea can conduct detailed reconnaissance and in-depth surveillance of North Korea even from 40 km away from the Military Demarcation Line.

Given how backward North Korea’s surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities are, trying to work from 40 km away must make South Korea look like a total black box for North Korea. It’s ironic that a man with Ahn’s medical and technological background would make comments that suggest such a lack of scientific knowledge.

Ignorant comments can also be heard from the other side of the Pacific.

Victor Cha, the Korea chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, testified during a hearing on Korean Peninsula security held at the US Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific on Oct. 4 that the US should “consider a new declaratory policy to neutralize future [North Korean] ICBM launches, including preemptive action.” Cha said that could mean shooting down missiles after launch or attacking the launchpads.

When Cha refers to “preemptive action,” he appears to be speaking of the kind of preemptive strikes that are covered by international law. But he’s also revealing his ignorance here.

When it comes to missiles, preemptive strikes are basically impossible. Ballistic missiles fly under thrust as long as they’re burning fuel. That’s why it’s impossible to predict the trajectory or point of impact until the burn is over. When an intercontinental ballistic missile is fired, it’s physically impossible to know the target of its warhead until its rocket fuel has all been burned.

Even shooting down that kind of missile might count as a preemptive attack that runs afoul of international law. After all, attacking a launchpad is still an attack.

In the worst-case scenario, such a strike could be a provocation that gives North Korea legal cover for an attack of its own. For example, Pyongyang could get ready to launch a missile as part of a planned attack against South Korea or the US and then, following a preemptive strike by South Korea, simply claim it hadn’t been planning to make an attack at all. If North Korea asserted that it had been planning to fire the missile into international waters, there would be no way to refute that assertion.

Since North Korea had been attacked, it could then claim it had no choice but to counterattack as a form of self-defense. Cha’s theory about a preemptive strike would only provide the North with a plausible excuse. If Cha made his comments in ignorance of these considerations, he’s truly ignorant.

The emergence of these ignorant remarks from all quarters can be traced back to the presidential office. Yoon declared during a ceremony for Armed Forces Day in September that “only a strong military can guarantee true peace.” Yoon was reiterating and elaborating his governing philosophy of “peace through strength.”

But believing peace is only guaranteed by strength is itself a manifestation of ignorance. The first person to coin the concept of the security dilemma was American political scientist John Herz.

What inspired the creation of that concept back in 1950? Herz was a realist, but he didn’t condone the ignorant realism that sought to guarantee security through strength alone. The harsh reality is that no amount of military might can guarantee security.

When South Korea seeks to build a stronger military, North Korea will obviously respond by boosting its own military. That’s why we call it a dilemma. That’s also the reason the US engaged in dialogue and agreed to arms control with the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War.

True peace cannot be guaranteed by a strong military alone. That’s the plain truth, an undeniable fact of history. Not knowing that amounts to ignorance, and feigning ignorance despite that knowledge is something even more dangerous still.

By Suh Jae-jung, professor of political science and international relations at the International Christian University in Tokyo

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