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The Emerging Post-Cold War Era: An American View
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17542 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
7 / 1990 |
2,409 Words |
| Author
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Ed Olsen
Ed Olsen is professor of Asian studies at the Naval
Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. The views
expressed are solely those of the author and do not represent
the position of any U.S. government agency. |
Korea's involvement in the Cold War has been extensive. The post-World War II division of the Korean nation, the creation of two Korean states as protégés of rival superpowers, and the Korean War collectively define the Cold War. The Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) embodied for Asia much of what the Berlin Wall represented in Europe - a graphic symbol of dangerous tensions that threatened to engulf the world in a calamitous war. Now that antagonisms in the European theater of the Cold War are rapidly diminishing, marked by the virtual collapse of the Warsaw Pact and serious rethinking of NATO's purposes, the Korean situation increasingly seems like a fossil of a bygone era.
South Korean, American, Japanese leaders often assert that their people should not be lulled by events in Europe into believing that peace is about to break out in East Asia too. Some say such arguments enable those three countries to maintain their security commitments. And the supporting evidence is fairly persuasive. Soviet armed forces in Asia have not yet scaled back to the extent they have in Europe. Though some see signs that Gorbachev's prospective visit to Tokyo in 1991 may foster enough momentum to generate movement on the long-standing "Northern Territories" issue and precipitate a meaningful expansion of bilateral trade and investment, for the time being serious tensions persist between Moscow and Tokyo. A Cold War thaw has not immediately spread to that quarter. Perhaps most importantly, there is little evidence that North Korea's threat to South Korea is diminishing. Despite the Republic of Korea's (ROK) enhanced defense capabilities and economic might relative to the North, Seoul legitimately perceives a threat. Moreover, it wants a continued American commitment to cope with that danger. In many ways South Korea acts as though
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