GS Paper II

News Excerpt:

• Recently, North Korea has rescinded its national objective of Korean reunification and has formally categorised South Korea as an adversarial state.

More about the news:

• N. Korea has ramped up the frequency and diversity of its missile tests, expanding its strategic capabilities. 
  • South Korea responded to these actions through joint military drills with the U.S. and Japan.
• The ongoing developments in the Korean peninsula have raised serious concerns about the deterioration of the international security environment and a deepening of major power rivalry.

Historical Context:

• The Korean peninsula was divided into two by the end of World War II after imperial Japan, who occupied the territory, was defeated. 
• The North went under the ambit of the Soviet Union and the South under the U.S., creating two ideologically different regimes that mirrored either side of the Cold War divide. 
• The Korean War (1950-53) broke out as a result of the North’s attempt to take over the South. 
• Decades after the cessation of active conflict and the end of the Cold War, the two countries are still divided over ideology and geopolitical leanings. 
• One of the biggest issues in the contemporary geopolitics of the Korean peninsula has been the question of North Korea’s de-nuclearisation. 
• The international community made various efforts to stop and reverse North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme.
• North Korea supposedly has the ability even to target the U.S. mainland with its nuclear arsenal, and it has also become a major source of cyber-attacks across the world. 
• South Korea has enhanced its military alliance with the U.S. over the past decades and has become an integral part of its wider alliance system, hosting not just U.S. troops but also advanced missile defence systems.

Causes of recent aggravation:

• Recently, the supreme leader of the North Korean regime has announced that he is scrapping the decades-old North Korean goal of reunifying the South and has rebranded the South as an enemy state. 
• He also ordered the rewriting of the North Korean constitution to reflect this new shift in the regime’s thinking. 

• North Korea has also tested multiple types of missile systems during the first month of 2024.
• One such important test was that of a solid-fueled missile carrying a hypersonic warhead. 
• These weapons provide countries the capability to evade and even target the missile defence systems of their adversaries.
• Meanwhile, South Korea, the U.S., and Japan have conducted joint naval drills.
• The exercises were meant to enhance their joint effectiveness against North Korea’s missile and underwater threats, as well as its illegal maritime shipment of arms. 
• N. Korea subsequently tested its “Haeil-5-23” nuclear-capable underwater drone in retaliation to these joint naval drills. 
• It also tested its strategic cruise missile “Pulhwasal-3-31”, which could allegedly threaten critical American bases in Japan.
• In light of these developments, there is a high probability for tit-for-tat measures to lead to unintended consequences. 

Major international security concerns:

• This conflict poses a major security concern because the key external stakeholders of the Korean peninsula are the very same nuclear powers who are locked in a “global strategic competition” -  the U.S., China and Russia. 
• North Korea’s deepening ties with China and Russia and South Korea’s increasingly firm entrenchment in the U.S. alliance system imply significant prolonging of ongoing conflicts.
• China has always been consistently supportive of North Korea, being the single largest trading partner of the country.

• Russia and China are on the same side when it comes to the Russia-Ukraine as well as the Israel-Hamas conflict.
• So both have much to gain from North Korea, creating a distraction for the U.S. by opening a “third front”.

Conclusion:

The situation in the Korean Peninsula is becoming more complicated, with North Korea aligning itself with China and Russia. The involvement of major global powers raises concerns about potential regional conflicts, adding to the complexity of the geopolitical landscape in the area.