The Korean war(1950-53) ended after 3years fighting, however the state of war is not ended since the armistice negotiation settled 60 years ago. During this 60 years, there was only precarious and temporary peace by force, and the peace by common auth...
The Korean war(1950-53) ended after 3years fighting, however the state of war is not ended since the armistice negotiation settled 60 years ago. During this 60 years, there was only precarious and temporary peace by force, and the peace by common authority is still not arrived. What created this delayed peace? It is definitely required to analyze closely about the issues, pecularities and origins of the Korean War Armistice system which still exists after the end of the Cold War.
This research tried to explore the outbreak, development procedure and the end of the Korean War, as a process in which Korean Society encountered with Global Liberal Order and its division of labor structure. I attempted to re-interpret the discussions, political negotiations and decisions around the Korean War through analyzing the characters of the 20th century's Liberal Peace Project which operated at the War.
The Liberal International order of 20th Century, which was emerged and expanded during around the Second World War, must confront the huge dilemma which it has never founded clear solutions. The Korean War was one of the most difficult problems in the history which the liberal order encountered during it's ascendancy.
How the United Nation, United States, Western Allies and East Asian countries decided after every debates? Where is the location of the Korean War in the history of Liberal international order of 20th Century. and what is the historical implication of the war in the history of the liberal peace project? What kind of liberal peace projects introduced to the Korean War and how they transformed and changed their strategy?
To answer this questions, this research borrowed the insights of the concept 'liberal Governmentality' of Foucault. And adopted the methodology of the Geneaology of the Govermentality to analyze how the liberal order was established in the context of the Third World during the Cold War and which kind of liberal projects were operated.
Especially, this research re-interpreted the Containment policy of the U.S. not as a cold war foreign policy, but as a 'peculiar political form' of the liberal project. Therefore, I defined the containment policy as an "ensemble of institutions, procedures, analysis, calculations and tactics, with which the liberal order can produce some freedoms and sustain the order by calculating the costs, to confront a certain Risk and Crisis with constructing a special kind of National security strategy". Flexible Frontiers of the 'Free World' during the Cold War were constructed, sustained and changed by these responses of the Security apparatus which confronted the Crisis of a certain Freedom.
The results and my argues after re-interpretation of the outbreak, development and effects of the Korean War, as a procedure in which a certain liberal project was introduced, can be summarized as following.
First, the liberal peace project during the Korean War produced many side effects, because it tried to accomplish the supra-national universal principle and value by unilateral militaristic approach. The complex structure, which emerged by global liberal peace projects, to manage a war and peace were applied to the Korean War. However, as the War occurred when the liberal order ascendancy, the unique situation evolved due to the Korean War was symbolized too politically. The United Nation and the U.S. pursued to punish the North Korea by global Juridical frame and military intervention. Even more, as U.S. expanded its operation from defensive war to the aggressive war to unite whole Korea by force, it created the 'Double State of Exception' which transformed not only the power structure of the UN and but also violated the U.S. constitution by empowering the UN assembly and deploying U.S. army only by the U.N. resolution without congress approval.
The early decisions of the U.N. which initiated by U.S. was negation of the 19th century's international positivist principle which protected the state sovereignty by applying new global legal order in the U.N. charter. U.S. tried to achieve this maximum goal to criminalize the 'aggressor' by liberal legal authority and pursued the 'Victor's Peace' to seek unconditional surrender. However, this approach failed to create peace by peaceful means such as mediating negotiations between both belligerents themselves, and failed to respect the sovereignty principle and pre-existing local context. The 'paradox of universal project' combined with militarism, and the 'paradox of military success' and political failure, was the historical pecularity of the early decision of the Korean War.
Second, Chinese intervention discouraged the liberal project and created the balance of power state. After then, both bloc pursued more realistic status quo approach. To respond this changes, U.S. adopted differentiated approach to the each problems they should solve with Communist China, the Korean War itself, and the early Peace treaty with Japan. This deepened the division of the East Asia and also the issues of the Korean Armistice negotiations systemically excluded any kinds of political matters. From this point, a militaristic-technical form of peace was installed.
Chinese intervention was a 'Regional political action' which changed the character of the War from the radical nationalistic unification war of the third world and UN-US's 'Just war' to more broad 'East Asian war'. With her intervention, the burden to solve the problems of the Korean war and international meaning was dramatically changed. With this pressure, the driving force of the original "universal-ideal-militaristic" projects was exhausted and another "regional-realistic-political" project was emerged. As liberal project transformed, every issues were dealt with different approaches, and multi dimensional frontiers were created. This procedure founded the basis of the "East Asian cold war division system".
That is, the People's Republic of China could not become the member of the UN during next 20 years, militaristic armistice negotiation started without any political agenda in Korea, and Japan concluded a liberal Peace Treaty with U.S., which has no reparation clauses and no political solution for the problems of the Second World war of East asia including post-colonial agenda and territorial issues after the war and regime changes. Therefore, U.S. responded the chinese intervention by differentiating three nations with political exclusion(non-recognition), localizing and limiting the Korean War peace negotiation to a militaristic affair, and a rapid political-economical inclusion for each cases. This three projects constituted a specific East Asian Security-Peace division structure.
Third, when the armistice negotiation started, the U.S. introduced new principle of "Voluntary repatriation" for the Prisoners of War at the Korean War to emphasize moral superiority of liberal countries. It was a project to negate pre-exist international legal principle, such as Geneva Convention of 1949, therefore it created many unexpected and brutal conflicts in various level, including UN and in the Prisoner camps.
At the Korean War, three different international regimes regarding POWs were applied. It was War Crime regime(Versailles and Nuremberg), individual rights and right of political asylum(UN and U.S.) regime, and humanitarian law of war(Geneva) regime. U.S. attempted to establish a new international principle of voluntary repatriation as a more superior than other nationalistic principle which guaranteed state sovereignty.
When U.S. legitimized the new principle as a standard of new civilization which transcend all pre-existing international value, brutal violence toward so called communist POWs was legitimized by double exclusion by 'oriental communists' image. This was an another case which shows universal principle which attempted to negate pre-existing legal principle by force, accompanied by naked-violence and exceptionalism in reality. This was also an another case of the paradox of Universal-militarism we observed at the early phase of the War. This liberal project can be described as a "liberal nation-making" or "liberal subject-creating" project with illiberal nation beyond previous "national nation-building" tradition.
To apply this liberal project, big screening operations were introduced to inside the POW camps. And It created serious tensions and violences between POWs who has different political beliefs and different origins, who came from two divided countries by two civil war(Korea and China). As UN Camp authority encouraged political asylum to liberal state, some anti-communists could become an 'honorary citizen of cold war', the other illiberal communist POWs stigmatized as illiberal "The Other" through double exclusion by fanatic 'Oriental Communist' image which was compared with "Liberal civilization".
As this transcendental principle introduced by force, many subjects who were more aggressive than U.N. army themselves were emerged. With their aggressive anti-communism and active participation in screening operations, they have got small awards and powers at the local scale. They were the excesses of the liberal system who converted their belief to get a status as a political refugee or a right of asylum. And U.S. mobilized these 'defectors' into the covert operations.
Fourth, conflicts around armistice negotiation made the ideal for the final political solution of Korean problem exhausted, thus it resulted to bilateral defense treaty relationship with U.S. in East Asia. As a reaction to this exclusive military alliance building, south east asian countries developed alternative post cold war peace project with which to prevent same results of Korean case in their region and to overcome UN-U.S. liberal peace approach.
When Eisenhower administration was launched, they stressed economic consideration rather than political significance as previous Truman administration did. After rearranging strategic priorities, they started to establish more cheap, symbolic, non-multilateral security pact with pro-liberal East Asian countries.
International conference was held outside the UN to seek political solution of Korean Problem as the Armistice agreement provided such a plan. However, no parties were eager to solve this extreme conflict by politics, rather, all player chose to maintain balance of power status. And within this balance state, cold war blocs resumed to build their army and aid to their allies. Therefore, Geneva conference regarding Korean problem produced no positive result, but the negotiation regarding indochina problem was settled by partition and armistice as exactly the Korean armistice have done. Meanwhile, South Korean government was eager to get a signature of U.S. on a military defence treaty with U.S..
As Cold war expanded into the South East Asia, PRC initiated to disseminate their "five principle for peaceful coexistence" owing to the experiences of negotiation with U.S. and UN during the Korean War. When U.S. push forward to establish SEATO in south east asia, and PRC's showed their will to expand their influences in to same area, it created serious tension. Therefore, new alternative post cold war peace project emerged at 'Bandung conference'. Bandung conference criticized powerless liberal peace project of UN and unilateral way of U.S., and PRC's intention and aid to neighboring allies. However, two Korean governments were not even invited.
Finally, the Korean War experiences was a failure of liberal peace project which shows us the 'paradox of success' by unilateral force to pursue universal liberal plan. Liberal project deepened the tension of cold war in East Asia, have maintained the precarious balance of power system, also strengthened civilizational dichotomy, and did not considered regional context as postcolonial problem well. It only attempted to lead them to the bilateral military alliance. This was a model in which the maximum ideal rapidly turned to realistic compromise and neglect after confronting strong resistance and only could be sustained by 'obsession with balance of status quo', which caused delayed peace for 60 years in Korea.
I want to generalize this pattern more. The dialectics of freedom and security arranges different resources and approach by calculating the specific costs and analyzing the character and scale of a specific crisis. As the results of this selective approach has been accumulated, the division of labor structure regarding War and Peace has been constructed. We can see at the Korean War that an ideal project with military mean created another crisis, and when balance of power system emerged, political-economical differentiation strategy was introduced. These serial processes finally created East asian division system.
In these days, liberal peace project are maintaining spatial separation between the 'zone of war' and the 'zone of peace' with unequal and hierarchial economic structure. This create worries that the value of peace in liberal peace project can perhaps legitimize unequal structure. On the one hand, this is a natural result of liberal project which has critical limitation that it only has interested in producing freedom, maintaining someone's privilege, protecting existing power. If liberal project only emphasizes a stable order and separated peace without having any concern to the unequal structure of global and social economic system, and to the sensitive local context, this result is inescapable.
The 60 years delayed peace and prolonged state of war in Korea, lies exactly in the border between the 'zone of war' and the 'zone of peace', and in the middle of the hierarchial division of labor system. However, unfortunately, Korean society have never suggested a deep and appealing reflexivity about war and peace by themselves. The Korean war has been a just "Museum of the Cold War" and extreme conflict not a resources of wisdom for peace.
It is critical time now that the liberal international order which was leaded by U.S. is transforming. Military and territorial tension and disputes are increasing between East Asian countries. Now re-negotiations are just started.
However, previous peace theories and designs were only suggested the 20th century's liberal project for the North Korea, or 19th century's national project to build an united Korea, or following federal state model as western states did, or repeating past ideas which suggested by UN, even worse, have only interest to the stable 'our peace'. All these options have limitations.
I hope alternative peace projects will emerge after considering agendas of the historical experiences of liberal peace project in the Korean War. Not only for the our peace, but also for the more peace with equality. More fundamental critique is required not to select between 'lesser evil' and 'lesser good' in this Liberal Cosmos.