By Evan Cooper
There’s something uncanny about walking through a modern and immaculately clean train station completely devoid of passengers or trains. Save for a few tourists taking photos, one could be excused for thinking the station was nothing more than an elaborate movie set. This was the scene at Dorasan station, a South Korean endeavor just south of the DMZ that is meant to one day allow travel through the North and all the way across the transcontinental railroad. I came to South Korea to learn more about the country’s relationship the North and to try to garner more information on what is being done to change the security dilemma that has gripped the US and the world of late. So far, my experience has been one exemplified by the empty train station - there are efforts being made to reconnect the two countries, but no one seems sure of how to do it.
I did not consider it until posed with the question a few years back but there is a personal reason I first became interested in the situation in North Korea. I went to high school with many South Koreans, some of which I have had the chance to see while here, and every time there was a new North Korean missile test or threat of increased hostilities, I worried about them. At a larger level, it was readily apparent to me that North Korea is, as Barack Obama tried to explain to Donald Trump as the presidential transition happened, the most urgent foreign policy issue facing the United States today. This is a problem that seems worth trying to solve to me, on both a personal and professional level.
I spent the previous semester researching influence operations being conducted by the United States in North Korea. The goal of such undertakings is to change the beliefs and/or actions of North Korean leadership, or even the civilian population. Due to both the sensitive nature of influence operations and the complete lack of standardized methods for conducting them, I came to realize there was little information and public discussion about this important facet of not just policy towards North Korea, but policy towards any hostile opponent. The goal of my trip to South Korea was to learn more about how these operations are being conducted, how they could be improved, and what the desired end state is from both officials and civilians alike.
My trip to South Korea is in large part to ask people here how they think North Korea would best be influenced, and to see how this might be done. There are groups here that send pamphlets via balloons, organizations that facilitate defections, and the persistent few who smuggle Korean dramas and Western TV shows into the North by USB sticks. It’s important to talk about these strategies and others with Koreans because they both understand Korean culture the best (and similarities between the Koreas do remain), and because they are ultimately the largest stakeholders in successful American policy towards the North. North Korea does not pose an existential threat to the US, but it does towards South Korea. I am particularly curious to see if there is a difference in opinion about strategy between defense officials and those working for NGOs. One defense official told me privately, “Those people (NGO workers) just make our jobs more difficult by angering the North.” I would hazard a guess that the NGO workers feel similarly about the defense officials.
Though I have only been here a few days, it has struck me how comfortable many South Koreans are with the status quo of the renegade North. Perhaps it is resignation more than comfort. Certainly there is far less fear of the North than there is in the US, which is strange considering the far larger threat the South faces, but understandable given the inevitable acceptance that comes with the fatigue of constant hostilities. While no one I have talked to wants hostilities to continue, there seems little agreement on the direction that should be taken. Younger people are resistant to any prospect of reunification, knowing that they will be burdened with rebuilding the North and trying to assimilate the two populations. Older people, generally, hold out hopes for reuniting the two countries, and many have family separated by the DMZ. But they do not want a deadly war, of which one between the North and South would certainly be, to achieve such ends.
I was talking to one Korean man about my trip to the DMZ, to which he commented, “That’s something only tourists do, it’s not interesting to us.” I won’t emulate Tom Friedman and assume that one comment is evidence of a uniform viewpoint, and I did see Koreans visiting the DMZ while I was there, but there does seem to be a distance between South Koreans and the issue of North Korea that feels far larger than the mere 35 miles Seoul sits from the most militarized border in the world. Seoul, and South Korea writ large, is so highly developed and well-functioning that it is understandable that there would be an acceptance of the status quo - it did get them to this point after all. But the problems posed by North Korea are not going anywhere soon, and South Korea will continue to face the most serious consequences of the actions of the pariah state to their North. But how South Korea and Koreans want to proceed matters, and the US would be well served to listen.
I did not consider it until posed with the question a few years back but there is a personal reason I first became interested in the situation in North Korea. I went to high school with many South Koreans, some of which I have had the chance to see while here, and every time there was a new North Korean missile test or threat of increased hostilities, I worried about them. At a larger level, it was readily apparent to me that North Korea is, as Barack Obama tried to explain to Donald Trump as the presidential transition happened, the most urgent foreign policy issue facing the United States today. This is a problem that seems worth trying to solve to me, on both a personal and professional level.
I spent the previous semester researching influence operations being conducted by the United States in North Korea. The goal of such undertakings is to change the beliefs and/or actions of North Korean leadership, or even the civilian population. Due to both the sensitive nature of influence operations and the complete lack of standardized methods for conducting them, I came to realize there was little information and public discussion about this important facet of not just policy towards North Korea, but policy towards any hostile opponent. The goal of my trip to South Korea was to learn more about how these operations are being conducted, how they could be improved, and what the desired end state is from both officials and civilians alike.
My trip to South Korea is in large part to ask people here how they think North Korea would best be influenced, and to see how this might be done. There are groups here that send pamphlets via balloons, organizations that facilitate defections, and the persistent few who smuggle Korean dramas and Western TV shows into the North by USB sticks. It’s important to talk about these strategies and others with Koreans because they both understand Korean culture the best (and similarities between the Koreas do remain), and because they are ultimately the largest stakeholders in successful American policy towards the North. North Korea does not pose an existential threat to the US, but it does towards South Korea. I am particularly curious to see if there is a difference in opinion about strategy between defense officials and those working for NGOs. One defense official told me privately, “Those people (NGO workers) just make our jobs more difficult by angering the North.” I would hazard a guess that the NGO workers feel similarly about the defense officials.
Though I have only been here a few days, it has struck me how comfortable many South Koreans are with the status quo of the renegade North. Perhaps it is resignation more than comfort. Certainly there is far less fear of the North than there is in the US, which is strange considering the far larger threat the South faces, but understandable given the inevitable acceptance that comes with the fatigue of constant hostilities. While no one I have talked to wants hostilities to continue, there seems little agreement on the direction that should be taken. Younger people are resistant to any prospect of reunification, knowing that they will be burdened with rebuilding the North and trying to assimilate the two populations. Older people, generally, hold out hopes for reuniting the two countries, and many have family separated by the DMZ. But they do not want a deadly war, of which one between the North and South would certainly be, to achieve such ends.
I was talking to one Korean man about my trip to the DMZ, to which he commented, “That’s something only tourists do, it’s not interesting to us.” I won’t emulate Tom Friedman and assume that one comment is evidence of a uniform viewpoint, and I did see Koreans visiting the DMZ while I was there, but there does seem to be a distance between South Koreans and the issue of North Korea that feels far larger than the mere 35 miles Seoul sits from the most militarized border in the world. Seoul, and South Korea writ large, is so highly developed and well-functioning that it is understandable that there would be an acceptance of the status quo - it did get them to this point after all. But the problems posed by North Korea are not going anywhere soon, and South Korea will continue to face the most serious consequences of the actions of the pariah state to their North. But how South Korea and Koreans want to proceed matters, and the US would be well served to listen.