By Franz Schurmann

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Non-Prediction #18 for Tuesday, June 22nd,1999

The Two Koreas Face Two Choices: Conflict or Chaos.

• Prediction:
  Prediction 18 is a non-prediction.

• Outcome:
  I shall evaluate non-prediction #18 on Tuesday, September 16, 1999.

A non-prediction means anything that is not a prediction. It could be a virtual prediction which looks like a prediction. But that's not my non-prediction. Mine is two different scenarios either of which could occur but not both at the same time.

One of these scenarios derives from fear --- fear that war and then chaos could come. The other derives from concern --- concern that conflict could erupt, people die but with hope and faith that in the end order comes about.

This non-prediction is about the divided Korean nation. I fear that chaos could come about in Korea in the weeks and months ahead. But I also think that non-chaotic conflict could arise in Korea which in the end will lead to a constructive reunification.

Statue of Kim Il Sung
Pres. Kim Dae Jung and Former Pres. Kim Young Sam	Kim Jong Il

This chaos-or-conflict choice is similar to what I voiced in Prediction #7: "The world will know by the beginning of May whether or not it will be setting off on a road leading to world peace or another leading to world war."

The location of Prediction #7's fear was Kosovo. The evaluation made on May 4 concluded that three factors indicated a turn into the peace road. But it also noted the possibility of a turn into the war road: Milosevic's remaining in power.

Last week a military clash occurred In Yellow Sea waters just off the peninsula between South and North Korean naval vessels. A North Korean torpedo boat was sunk with 30 lives lost. It was the most serious South-North clash since July 1953 when an armistice ended the Korean War.

The most worrisome documentation which impelled me to make this non-prediction was an item in the Chinese-language World Journal of June 16 about a new battle plan accepted by the joint US-ROK forces in the event of a new war in Korea.

Ever since the Korean armistice of 1953 US-ROK forces each year have held joint "Team Spirit" military maneuvers. Till last year the battle plan called for immediate deployment of forces if North Korea launched a serious attack across the demarcation line. Last year the conditions for deployment were changed. Now deployment will be ordered even if there only are "signs" that North Korea is planning an attack. Both battle plans call for a campaign to take over all of North Korea, thereby unifying the Korean nation. The new battle plan 5027 estimates that anywhere from 48 to 120 days will be needed to completely defeat the DPRK forces.

North Korean sources have been warning about the possibility of war around June 25, the 49th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War. President Clinton has ordered a nuclear carrier battle group into the Yellow Sea. South Korean sources have said North Korea has moved more than 20 SA-5 missiles with chemical warheads to its side of the demarcation line. Yet military movements alone do not lead to war.

An editorial in the Chinese-language Lianhe Zaobao of Singapore (June 18) voiced a warning: "The clash between South and North Korea not only reveals the enmity between two peoples of identical culture and race but also great powers are pushing each of them from behind. It's not impossible that another proxy war could break out." Now the three great powers are China, Japan and America.

Last November Chinese concerns about war in East Asia started growing again. That happened when President Jiang Zemin's much hailed visit to Japan ended in fiasco. Chinese officials blamed it on a newly powerful Japanese ultra-right determined to re-arm Japan and once again make it the dominant East Asian power.

This year new currents of fear have been flowing into the waters of concern. Japan's ultra-right and conservative parties concluded an electoral alliance which has a good chance winning in the coming elections. The conservatives, notably Prime Minister Obuchi, talk soft about China. The ultra-right, notably newly elected Tokyo governor Ishihara, talks tough. The Chinese, trusting neither, feel more and more fearful.

The ratification of the new "guidelines" of the US-Japan Security Treaty makes the Chinese even more fearful. Under these changes both countries agree to deploy armed forces if a serious threat against one or both arises in a defined "periphery." That periphery includes Korea, Taiwan and Mainland China.

I have just read a Reuter's dispatch that the official Chinese People's Daily today published an angry editorial accusing the US of seeking to become the "Lord of the Earth." The Chinese are bitter about Kosovo I. They may now fear that a Kosovo II = Korean War II could come about on the Korean peninsula.

In Korean War I there was no formal end to the war, only the 1953 armistice. In 1918 the guns of World War I went silent through an armistice. But a year later a peace treaty was concluded. There never was a peace treaty in Korea.

Both the South and the North yearn for reunification. Koreans are a familistic society. Ancestor worship is widely practiced. The North-South talks now going on in Beijing are about family reunification. On June 25, 1950 North Korea tried to unify Korea and Korean families by force of arms. If Battle Plan 5027 should get invoked sometime this summer then it will be South Korea which this time seeks reunification.

If another attempt at the reunification of the Korean peninsula should occur will it lead to order or to chaos?

Kosovo I could have led to Cold War II between America and Russia. That would have been a move in the direction of war and chaos. It didn't. But neither is the Kosovo road leading to order. It's still ambiguous.

North Korea wracked by famine is weak as was East Germany by spiritual depression before the Berlin Wall came down in November 1989. East Germany was then absorbed into West Germany by and large in an orderly fashion. That's one possibility if Battle Plan 5027's five stage defeat of the DPRK succeeds.

But Korean War II could also lead to a new Cold War between the US and Japan on one side and China (and maybe Russia) on the other. That in turn could lead to the progression Cold War -----> Hot War. That would lead to Asia Chaos -----> World Chaos.