As of 2024, five years after the collapse of nuclear negotiations between the leaders of North Korea and the United States, nothing has been resolved on the Korean Peninsula, and North Korea's nuclear weapons have gone beyond technological advancement...
As of 2024, five years after the collapse of nuclear negotiations between the leaders of North Korea and the United States, nothing has been resolved on the Korean Peninsula, and North Korea's nuclear weapons have gone beyond technological advancement and have become existential. The 21st century is an era of complex geoeconomics in which the paradigm of international politics is changing. Complex geoeconomics is an international dynamic in which security and economy interact horizontally through the Internet and networking.
Establishing a peace system (peace process) on the Korean Peninsula is not only a process of converting the Korean Peninsula Armistice Agreement into a peace agreement, but also a process of breaking the dynamic structure of the Korean Peninsula in which the division system, Cold War system, and armistice system are linked as three powers and one body. The resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue is also directly linked to overcoming this trinity structure. The reason why it is
difficult to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue is because the strategic interests of the great powers are intertwined with the Cold War structure on the Korean Peninsula, and this is also why it is difficult to achieve a peace process on the Korean Peninsula.
Through this study, we can see that it is virtually impossible to solve the division problem and North Korea problem, that is, the North Korean nuclear problem, without considering the nature of the Korean Peninsula order as a combination of internal and international factors.
In establishing a peace system on the Korean Peninsula through denuclearization, agreement and implementation between North Korea and the United States are important, but South and North Korean Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong-un should have first deeply recognized that agreement and implementation between South and North Korea are more important and essential.
This paper analyzes the nuclear negotiations that took place between the three leaders of South, North Korea, and the United States in 2018-9 by applying them to the complex geoeconomics strategy. The three-party nuclear negotiations are the climax of the Korean Peninsula peace process that has been developed and promoted by successive progressive governments in South Korea, and this important phase was opened by Kim Jong-un's peace offensive on the premise of giving up nuclear weapons. North Korea's Kim Jong-un's initiative to exchange nuclear weapons and economic development was timely and touching, but analysis showed that the intention and reality were very
disappointing.
First, it has been confirmed that the fact that North Korea isan unprecedented one-man worship theocratic system and military state is acting as a shackle that binds itself to a single, fixed goal. Moreover, the fact that North Korea during the Kim Jong-un era is aiming for a communist kingdom similar to the Stalin-style communist dictatorship that has already degenerated and disappeared, adds to the power of turning these shackles into fate. Expecting North Korea to use a complex geo-economic negotiation strategy can be said to be similar to expecting to wear clothes that are the wrong size and cannot be worn.
Modern countries in the 21st century move with statism instead of nationalism, local self-government rather than central government, and less weight and lighter movements. Adaptability to change is the key to running a country. The international order in the era of complex geoeconomics is being formed by countries that act quickly and with rationality and flexibility through multilateral networking and reform, opening and liberalization. However, North Korea not only had no experience with the operating logic of international politics, but also seemed to have no will to keep pace. Rather, he seemed to be obsessed with the thought that ‘if you change, you die.’
The problem was Kim Jong-un himself. The idea that Kim Jong-un would be the new generation leader with reformist ideas that many people in North and South Korea expected and imagined was not true.
North Korea's behavior after the collapse of nuclear negotiations shows that Kim Jong-un is focusing on moderate conflict rather than institutional peace with the United States, self-reliance rather than economic integration with South Korea, and is focusing solely on advancing nuclear missile technology. This is due to North Korea's confidence that through the nuclear negotiations process, North Korea did not make any concessions on its nuclear missile program, but instead faced off with the president of the world's most powerful United States for three times and achieved the de facto nuclear disarmament struggle of freezing N.K.nuclear weapons and improving relations.
It is an inexcusable fact that the fact Kim Jong-un achieved truly great results with a disguised complex geoeconomics strategy card was due to the efforts of Moon Jae-in, who promoted Kim Jong-un from a ‘main enemy’ to a ‘partner in the peaceful unification of the Korean Peninsula.’
From South Korea's point of view, the anxiety that still remains despite being in this situation is that although the measures taken by the current Yoon Seok-yeol government to respond to North Korea's nuclear weapons, such as forming and operating a ROK-US nuclear consultation group and strengthening Korea-US-Japan cooperation, are realistically possible and appropriate, the sophistication has already progressed considerably. The point is that it cannot be a fundamental measure to deal with the existential threat of North Korean nuclear missiles. If this plan is followed, South Korea's security in response to North Korea's nuclear weapons will be entirely dependent on the United States. Historically, the United States' foreign strategy goes back and forth between inclusiveness (commitments) and the Monroe Doctrine (isolationism) depending on national interests and changes in the internal and external environment. A pendulum phenomenon was observed.
Through the failure of the Korean Peninsula peace process due to the collapse of the nuclear negotiations in 2018-9, South Korean society has severely experienced the despondency of all the pro-N.K.approaches such as the Sunshine Policy, all expectations and hopes placed on North Korea's leadership over the past 30 years were lost.
From now on, South Korea must change its strategy toward North Korea by seeing and dealing only with North Korean residents rather than the hereditary rulers of the Baekdu lineage, leaving everything to their awareness and decisions, and supporting them. Even in this case, geoeconomics strategy is
essential. A geoeconomic approach is necessary not only for the North and South to survive for a long time without hurting each other, but also as a self-rescue measure to protect South Korea itself.