On March 26 one year ago, 46 South Korean naval crew members were killed when their warship sank in the sea off North Korea’s west coast. Fifty-eight survivors, when rescued, did not know what had ripped their Cheonan warship in two. It took a multinational investigation team two months to confirm that the corvette had fallen victim to a North Korean torpedo attack.
There should be many questions that South Koreans would like to ask on the first Cheonan memorial. One that must be included among them is: Now, is South Korea better prepared against an unprovoked act of hostility from the North?
The question is all the more relevant, given that what the military had claimed to be a watertight defense posture proved to be porous. If not, how could a North Korean submarine retreat without being detected after sinking the Cheonan in a surreptitious torpedo attack?
What was even more disconcerting was that the military did not prepare for a potential submarine attack when it discovered a fleet of North Korean submarines was leaving its naval base. A white paper on the Cheonan, released on Thursday, acknowledged the military knew of the fleet’s departure, saying that it took no precautionary action because it regarded its activity as routine.
Does the belated admission to the mistake mean the military is better prepared now? It should be. But when North Korea engaged in another unprovoked act of hostility in November, the military’s preparedness proved to be inadequate again. This time, its target was not a naval ship but the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong in the west sea.
The chain of command did not work properly in both cases, delaying the initial reports from the warship and from the field to the commander-in-chief and, thus, making it difficult to quickly and properly respond to the provocations. Belatedly, the defense minister had to issue a new order to officers on duty: When under attack, act first and report later.
Under a post-Cheonan defense reform plan, the military has abandoned its perception of North Korea as a “potential threat” to South Korean security. Now it regards it as a “standing threat.” In accordance with the change in perception, the military is fortifying its defense posture in the sea off North Korea’s west coast by deploying more troops and more powerful weapons in the island bases. Fortification, which is proceeding in other areas as well, includes the launching of a new Aegis-equipped destroyer earlier in the week.
Even so, few may claim that South Korea is more secure from North Korea’s military threat now than a year ago, given the wayward behavior of the North Korean communists. But it can be safely said that the North will have to think twice before launching an attack against the South because it will have to pay dearly if it does.
By sinking the Cheonan, shelling Yeonpyeong and threatening to launch an attack against South Koreans sending propaganda balloons in psychological warfare, North Korea has shown “otherness” to South Koreans. No wonder South Korea has suspended all channels of official dialogue pending an apology and a commitment not to engage in an unprovoked act of hostility again.
Now North Korea is appealing to the sense of “usness” when it is repeatedly calling for the resumption of inter-Korean dialogue, apparently in pursuit of massive aid from the South. But in the wake of the Cheonan torpedoing, a growing number of South Koreans believe that North Koreans are more of an enemy than they belong to us. They demand North Korea’s leadership meet the preconditions for talks before proposing to open an official channel of dialogue. Of course, the provision of humanitarian aid by private groups should be a separate issue.
