US Must Formally End Korean War to Avert Nuclear Catastrophe: Peace Group

A group of activists, scholars, and members of the public are convening in Washington with the hopes of bringing an end to the Korean War

A South Korean F-15K fighter releases two Joint Direct Attack Munition (JADAM) bombs into an island target in response to North Korea's intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) launch earlier in the day at an undisclosed location on Oct. 4, 2022. North Korea fired an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) over Japan in its first launch of an IRBM in eight months, according to South Korea’s military. South Korean Defense Ministry via Getty Images

A group of activists, scholars, and members of the public convened in Washington last week in hopes of bringing an end to the Korean War, which has been stuck in a perpetual ceasefire without a formal peace agreement for seven decades.

Gathered in a crowded classroom at George Washington University in Washington, academics, peace activists, and individuals whose families were torn apart by the conflict held a conference to mark the 70th anniversary of the armistice that paused—but didn’t end—the Korean War.

Linda Yarr, director of partnerships for international strategies in Asia at George Washington University, said the conference was an opportunity to call for an end to the war that has existed between the U.N. and North Korea for some 70 years.

“For 70 years, as you know, the people of the Korean Peninsula have lived under a cloud of unresolved conflict that breaks out in crisis from time to time,” Ms. Yarr said.

“Today, we can take some time to educate ourselves, to reflect, and to deepen our understanding of the prospects and challenges involved in shifting from an armistice to a peace agreement.”

The push for a peace agreement comes as many groups, including conference organizer Korea Peace Now!, increasingly express concern that tensions between the United States and North Korea will boil over into a nuclear catastrophe.

Christine Ahn, a coordinator for Korea Peace Now!, said the conference was intended to change “the way we all think about the Korean War and its ongoing impact” and to offer up “new thinking” to break the mold of a dangerous nuclear stalemate.

“We wanted to center the story of individuals whose families have been torn apart by war and the obstacles they continue to face in the absence of peace,” Ms. Ahn said.

“As the situation on the Korean Peninsula reaches dangerous levels, we felt it was important to [also] hear from military experts and nuclear scientists how peace and normalization can go a long way toward taking the threat of nuclear war off the table.”

‘Most Terrible War in History’

The Korean War began in 1950, when communist North Korea invaded democratic South Korea, but soon exploded into a massive conflict when the U.N. backed the South while China and the Soviet Union supported the North.

Ultimately, a ceasefire was signed in 1953 by representatives of the U.N., North Korea, and China. South Korea never signed the armistice, refusing to accept a divided Korea at the time, and no South Koreans were present at its signing.

Since then, China and South Korea have reached their own peace agreement, leaving the U.N., primarily represented by the United States, and North Korea as the only active parties in the armistice.

Bruce Cummings, a history professor at the University of Chicago, spoke at length on the issue of the unresolved nature of the Korean War, particularly what he viewed as an ongoing failure of U.S. policy in continuing the status quo through nuclear intimidation.

“The chance of nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula and its vicinity is still very strong, and it would be the most terrible war in history,” he said.

“And I must say that the United States government, all presidents, Republicans, and Democrats consistently try to intimidate North Korea by flying nuclear-capable bombers into the Korean theater. ... This has been true since 1951.”

Men of the U.S. Army 24th Infantry Regiment loaded on trucks for transport to the front line during the Korean War on July 18, 1950. National Archives/AFP via Getty Images

U.S. policy in place since the Eisenhower administration has consistently failed to produce effective outcomes and often seems to encourage more belligerence from North Korea than would have occurred through diplomatic engagement, according to Mr. Cummings.

He noted that there was no evidence that the Eisenhower-era policy of “massive retaliation” contributed to North Korea’s signing of the armistice. Instead, he said, North Korea seems to have been equally swayed to bring the war to a pause because of the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, whose passing greatly destabilized the communist power bloc in Eurasia at the time.

“In spite of all of this nuclear hoopla, there isn’t any evidence that these nuclear threats made any difference in North Korea and China signing the armistice,” Mr. Cummings said.

Similarly, he said decades of deterrence through strength by the United States has failed to deter nuclear proliferation in North Korea.

Indeed, he said, for the first 53 years of the armistice, North Korea had no nuclear weapons but became determined to obtain them because of the United States’ constant use of its own nuclear arsenal as a coercive diplomatic tool.

North Korea finished developing its own nuclear weapons in 2006 and is now estimated to have 20 to 30 nuclear weapons.

North Korea’s communist regime is also profoundly influenced by the legacy of destruction in the Korean War, to an extent that Mr. Cummings said most Americans wouldn’t understand.

Most Americans don’t think of the Korean War at all, much less know the extent of destruction it resulted in, he said. This includes actions taken by the United States that would have been considered war crimes even at the time, including the mass bombing of civilian infrastructure, including major dams.

U.S. forces, which made up roughly 90 percent of the U.N. group, razed some 16 North Korean cities during the conflict through a campaign of intense bombing that included the widespread use of napalm.

The United States dropped roughly 635,000 tons of bombs on Korea between 1950 and 1953. That’s more than it dropped in the whole Pacific Theater over the entirety of World War II.

That campaign drove much of North Korean military infrastructure underground and inspired a drive in the regime’s leadership to obtain nuclear weapons that has never been extinguished.

Because of that, Mr. Cummings said, while the communist regime’s crimes can’t be overlooked, their motivations for pursuing nuclear weapons were clear enough.

“I don’t want to excuse the North Koreans; they are [authors] of most of their own problems,” he said. “But it doesn’t matter who would be governing Pyongyang under this kind of threat. The first thing they would want under this kind of threat is nuclear weapons.”

A South Korean soldier (R) stands next to a television screen showing a news broadcast with file footage of a North Korean missile test, at a railway station in Seoul, South Korea, on July 22, 2023. Jung Yeon-Je/AFP via Getty Images

‘Catastrophic Policy Failure’

Given that North Korea now has nuclear weapons and that South Korea wants them, Mr. Cummings described the continued U.S. efforts to use its nuclear arsenal as a deterrent as being a “catastrophic policy failure” spanning more than a half-century.

The Biden administration’s consistently contradictory messaging on the issue of North Korea—saying it’s willing to engage in any nonproliferation talks with North Korea while refusing most all formal diplomacy with the hermit nation—is making matters worse, he said.

“It’s complete Orwellian double talk that the Biden administration is involved in,” Mr. Cummings said.

“He hasn’t done a good job, and neither has Obama or Trump.”

He also blamed the American media for failing to adequately address the reality of the ongoing impasse and how U.S. policy contributes to the conditions that mold North Korea’s political, economic, and military decision-making.

“Here we are, still at war with North Korea, nuclear war could break out, and we hardly ever get anything but propaganda,” Mr. Cummings said.

“We remain in denial about a conflict that is almost 80 years old and within an inch of breaking out again.”

To that end, he said the United States should engage in direct diplomatic talks with the North Korean regime and establish a peace agreement to replace the armistice. Only through the creation of normal diplomatic relations can a lasting peace be achieved, he believes.

Although the United States has avoided an overt war thus far, he said, the nuclear proliferation and increasing enmity between Washington and Pyongyang could hardly be defined as a victory and could result in a nuclear war.

“The U.S. has deterred a new war in Korea, but the result of that deterrence has been the emergence of North Korea as a major nuclear power, and I don’t see that as a success,” Mr. Cummings said.

“It’s much more important for me to establish normal relations with North Korea.”

Congressional Peace Effort Meets Resistance

The opinions expressed at the conference were contentious. Many, if not most, citizens in both South Korea and the United States believe that North Korea can only be deterred from starting a war through displays of strength.

As such, tensions are flaring up both in and out of Congress over legislation that would compel the government to unilaterally establish a peace deal with North Korea, even as the regime continues to threaten South Korea and the United States with nuclear annihilation.

The Peace on the Korean Peninsula Act, introduced by Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) in March and endorsed by the organizers of the Aug. 4 conference, would order the federal government to immediately seek to replace the current armistice with a formal peace deal.

Hailed by peace activists as a much-needed end to a 73-year conflict, the proposal has drawn criticism from Korean Americans and associated advocacy organizations over concern that it may needlessly weaken South Korea and U.S. deterrence efforts.

To that end, the news organization One Korea Network (OKN) and the U.S.–Korea Alliance Foundation (USKAF) influence group teamed up recently to coordinate a series of events that seek to counter Korea Peace Now!’s efforts and discourage the bill’s passage.

At a July 26 press conference in Washington, the bill’s detractors convened to counter what they called the “fake peace” of a “pro-North Korean” initiative.

Whatever the outcome of the legislative battle, however, the political machinery at work in Washington and Seoul currently only appears to be accelerating the use of military force as a deterrence measure.

The U.S.–South Korean military alliance reached what’s arguably its zenith in April when President Joe Biden received South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol in Washington. There, the two signed the Washington Declaration, which strengthens the U.S. commitment to defending South Korea under its nuclear umbrella in exchange for South Korea not pursuing the development of nuclear weapons.

Since then, the United States has sent two nuclear submarines to South Korea and invited Mr. Yoon to tour one of the vessels, making the South Korean leader the first and only foreign leader ever to set foot on a U.S. nuclear submarine.

The show of force drew strong protests from communist North Korea and its ally China, exacerbating tensions amid the already fraught relationships between the democratic and communist powers.

In response, North Korea fired two ballistic missiles into the sea. North Korean state propaganda stated that the nation’s communist leadership had vowed to “annihilate the enemy” of “U.S. imperialism.”