History points to dire danger on Korean peninsula

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un strikes a heroic pose. His grandfather, Kim Il-sung, was one of the longest-serving national leaders of the 20th century, taking the helm of North Korea from its inception in 1948 and keeping a firm grip on power until his death in 1994. "The Great Leader" created a pervasive cult of personality in North Korea, forming the basis of a Kim dynasty that has endured for more than six decades. /image via blogs.canoe.ca


The North Korean crisis is proof that history is not only interesting but also critically important to guiding world leaders through perilous times.

The drama that has played out on the Korean peninsula over the past 65 years appears to be entering its final act. It's a tragedy of epic proportions, filled with high stakes as well as variously colorful and doomed characters. Here are some of the key episodes to keep in mind as we await the likely explosive finale:

• In one of the biggest diplomatic blunders of the Cold War, the Russian delegation boycotted the United Nations Security Council in 1950 during debate over sending international troops to stop Pyongyang from forcefully reuniting the Korean peninsula. Without the Russians present to cast a veto, the Security Council authorized intervention, and the Korean War began.
• After literally turning the tide with a bold amphibious landing at Inchon in September 1950, legendary U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur went rogue. The commander of the U.N. forces pressed his troops across the 38th parallel, the demarcation line established at the end of World War II that cut the Korean peninsula in half: the North allied with the Russians and the South in the American camp. MacArthur then went a step too far, threatening to cross into China to attack North Korean bases even though President Harry Truman had ordered him to avoid provoking the Chinese from entering the war. On October 25, 1950, about 100,000 Chinese troops crossed into North Korea, the U.N. forces suffered a series of setbacks and MacArthur pressured Truman to launch nuclear weapons strikes. Truman relieved MacArthur of command in April 1951.
• The entry of China into the war ultimately led to stalemate. The Armistice Agreement that has maintained an uneasy peace on the Korean peninsula was signed in July 1953.
• While MacArthur suffered a spectacular fall from grace during the Korean War, the North Korean leader, Kim Il-sung, emerged as one of the most formidable national leaders of the 20th century. When Nikita Krushchev launched a series of reforms in the Soviet Union in 1956, Kim Il-sung ditched the Russians and alligned North Korea with China and its more virulent strain of Communism. The North Korean leader cemented his power by establishing a cult of personality that was later inherited by his son, Kim Jong-il, and grandson, Kim Jong-un. "The Great Leader," who died in 1994, ultimately outlived six South Korean presidents, seven Soviet leaders and 10 U.S. presidents.
• The first detailed accounts North Korean concentration camps emerged after the defections of a camp guard and a camp security chief in the mid-1990s. In 2004, Kwon Hyok, who had served as security chief for Camp 22 in the northeast of the country, was interviewed for a report in The Telegraph. Kwon Hyok described a system of prison camps modeled after the Soviet Union's gulags. He said the camps were filled with not only political prisoners but also generations of their kin serving life sentences of collective punishment. Kwon Hyok said water torture, hanging torture and public executions were commonplace in Camp 22. "The most unforgettable scene I remember was when I watched an entire family being killed," he said of gas chambers where chemical experiments were conducted on prisoners. "They were put inside the chamber and I saw them all suffocate to death. The last person to die was the youngest son, who was crying for his parents and eventually died."
• Kim Jong-il followed in The Great Leader's footsteps, and Kim Jong-un is on the same path. In 2009, the North Korean constitution was amended to refer to Kim Jong-il as "Supreme Leader."
• The North Korean nuclear weapons program was launched under Kim Jong-il to raise the country's prestige and boost its bargaining power on the world stage. In 2005, Kim Jong-il declared North Korea had joined the Nuclear Club, and a spokesman for his foreign ministry said, "We have produced nuclear weapons to defend ourselves and to oppose the increasingly obvious intentions of the (George W.) Bush administration. The current reality proves that powerful strength is needed to preserve justice and truth." To squelch dissent, the Supreme Leader also mastered the technique of alarming the North Korean citizenry over the spectre of a U.S.-led invasion. Kim Jong-un was placed in charge of the drive to develop nuclear bombs before his father's death in December 2011.
• It's hard to tell what superlative Kim Jong-un will adopt as his moniker, but he has clearly adopted his father's vision of a nuclear-armed North Korea extracting concessions from the international community in general and the United States in particular.

There are several sobering lessons and conclusions to draw from North Korea's history.

First, it would be a terrible mistake to underestimate the latest heir to the Kim dynasty. Kim Jong-un has not deviated from wielding the same levers of power his grandfather and father perfected. The Kim cult of personality is as strong as ever. The rhetoric and threats directed at the United States and South Korea have reached alarming proportions. And satellite imagery indicates an expansion of the North Korean gulags since Kim Jong-il's death.

Second, it's going to be extremely difficult to drive a big enough diplomatic wedge between North Korea and China to bring any kind of meaningful regime change to Pyongyang. China remains as adverse as ever to instability at home and in its sphere of influence. Even as the Chinese leadership strives to play nice with the world community and take its place as an equal to the United States as a global superpower, the uncertainty and likely chaos that would follow the collapse of the Kim dynasty is unthinkable in Beijing.

Third, North Korea's successful tests of nuclear bombs and long-range rockets have raised the security stakes on the Korean peninsula immensely. Pyongyang's capability to reach out and touch U.S. bases and allies with nuclear weapons has torn a gaping hole in the decades-long diplomatic strategy of isolating North Korea from the rest of the world. The United States and its allies in the region, particularly South Korea and Japan, are on a collision course with North Korea that could result in a cataclysmic military confrontation at any moment.