J.R. Kim, Ph.D.

Vice President and Secretary General

Council on Diplomacy for Korean Unification

The global order and peace established by international rules, conventions, and processes that have been upheld mainly by the United States since the conclusion of the Cold War are in jeopardy as a result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Realpolitik, or the logic of power that employs armed force to alter the status quo, is resurfacing in international affairs.

In Northeast Asia, a new Cold War structure is emerging with a liberal democratic alliance of the United States, Japan, and South Korea and a totalitarian alliance of China, Russia, and North Korea engaged in an arms race on a new terrain where economic and military security are intertwined. In recent years, cross-strait relations between China and Taiwan and inter-Korean relations on the Korean Peninsula appear to be governed more than ever by the same logic of realpolitik.

As a result of these changes, the fragile peace on the Korean peninsula that has existed since the signing of an armistice agreement in 1953 is under serious threat. Following its sixth nuclear test in 2017, North Korea declared the "completion of its national nuclear arsenal" in 2021, after focusing on further strengthening its military capabilities since Kim Jong-un took power. It has significantly increased the number of test launches of various intermediate- and long-range missiles since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, advancing its nuclear missile capabilities.

South Korea and the United States, both under new leadership, have responded by strengthening the South Korean military, expanding the deployment of US strategic assets around the Korean Peninsula, and intensifying joint military exercises. Tensions on the Korean Peninsula are rapidly rising as North Korea raises its intimidating voice in response to such measures by the South Korea-US alliance. In turn, the Yoon administration in South Korea has prioritized security as its primary agenda, and discourse on peace has taken a back seat.

Recent events on and around the Korean Peninsula have overshadowed the peace discussion. However, with tensions rising and concerns about the possibility of armed conflict growing, discussions about peace are more important than ever. If you want peace, prepare for war," as the saying goes, but if you want peace, you must prepare for peace, not war. Shouldn‘t we give peace a chance even in the midst of war?

Security and peace are not mutually exclusive. Peace should be discussed in a situation where the crisis of war is escalating and the importance of security is being emphasized. From the standpoint of realist international politics, security and peace do not have to be mutually exclusive. The more the war crisis escalates and the importance of security is emphasized, the more we must discuss peace. Peace, according to realist international politics, is the second-best option chosen out of desperation in the face of mutual destruction, rather than an idealistic illusion based on wishful thinking. From this perspective, the current crisis may provide Koreans a great opportunity to reorganize their thinking about peace-building and peaceful reunification on the Korean Peninsula. In this regard, the Irish peace process offers many lessons to the Koreans.

Of course, Ireland and Korea are very different. Some argue that the conflict between North and South Korea is a clash of ideologies -- capitalism and communism among the same people -- that the two Koreas fought a war known as the Korean War and that North Korea is still pursuing its ambition of communizing the entire Korean Peninsula through arms. However, emphasizing the differences prevents us from learning valuable lessons. Unlike the natural sciences, it is impossible to find two cases where all conditions are identical in the social sciences, particularly in comparative political analysis. Lessons from historical examples can be learned by emphasizing similarities rather than differences.

Unlike the Korean Peninsula, which has a one-ethnic, two-state structure, the Irish conflict is much more complex and overlapping, with a two-ethnic, one-state structure. This is because the conflict in Northern Ireland is an ethnic conflict between Irish and British residents, but it is also a conflict between two political entities, Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland, or the Republic of Ireland, and an international conflict between the United Kingdom and Ireland.

However, unlike North and South Korea, which were at the forefront of the international Cold War, there is little ideological or systemic difference between Northern and Southern Ireland. Both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, a self-governing region of the United Kingdom, are founded on liberal democracy and a market economy. However, digging a little deeper reveals that the conflict is much deeper. This is because ethnicity and religion are the most primal ideologies of human beings, and both ethnic and religious conflicts are at work in Ireland at the same time.

Ireland is far from inferior to Korea in terms of the intensity of the conflict. The duration of the conflict in the latter is only about 80 years after liberation in 1945, whereas in the former, it is over 850 years from the British occupation in 1171 and more than 100 years from the partition into the north and south in 1921. In terms of conflict depth, Ireland, which fought a violent civil war for 30 years since the 1960s following hundreds of years of the War of Independence is by no means inferior to North and South Korea, which experienced a fratricidal war know as the Korean War.

It was the fear of annihilation as a result of continued violence in a situation where neither side could enjoy unilateral supremacy that drove the Irish and British communities, which had become mortal enemies amidst hundreds of years of mutual violence, to agree to peace. The awareness of such fear made them avoid an all-or-nothing battle and choose the next best option. And they adhered to the principle of giving up violence first and then participating in political negotiations, eventually reaching a compromise called the Good Friday (or Belfast) Agreement in 1998 after a tedious peace process characterized by repeated compromises and breakdowns. The peaceful coexistence between the two communities was both a rational choice to avoid co-destruction and a product of desperate efforts for survival.

The essence of the Good Friday Agreement was coexistence through power sharing between the two communities. The Irish had to pay a high price for this. The Irish community in Northern Ireland gave up their independence. Southern Ireland amended the territorial provisions in its Constitution, which declared sovereignty over the entire island of Ireland. It also modified the concept of Irish identity. In return, Britain ceded its sovereign power over Northern Ireland, and the British community shared its centuries-long monopoly over power with the Irish.

The Good Friday Agreement was implemented through immediate institutionalization and legislation. The Northern Ireland power-sharing government was formed through the sequential transfer of legislative, administrative, and judicial power by the British government following the agreement. The sharing of power between the two communities was guaranteed through the introduction of a mandatory coalition and a cross-voting system. Between North and South Ireland, a North-South Ministerial Council was established, representing the heads of governments on both sides and involving all ministers from both sides. The Northern Ireland delegation systematically assured the equal participation of both Irish and British ministers. Between the two governments of Ireland and the United Kingdom, an international organization was established at various levels to monitor and support the implementation of the agreement. All the bodies were designed to be interconnected so that the collapse of any one body would cause the collapse of everything else, preventing the collapse of the agreement.

Above all, what distinguishes the Irish peace process based on the Good Friday Agreement is that it left Ireland's future open-ended, with no expectation of reunification. The future of the island of Ireland was to be decided by people on both sides of the border in a simultaneous referendum, not by the governments of Northern Ireland or the United Kingdom. At some point in the future, if the people of both sides make a choice about their future, all governments are mandated to implement it immediately. At the same time, by not assuming a specific future in the here and now, it has left that decision to future generations.

The questions that the Irish have wrestled and struggled with over centuries of conflict are eerily similar to those that the Koreans face. After centuries of wrangling between annihilation and coexistence, the Irish have devised their own solutions. As the conflict between North and South Korea escalates and the annihilation crisis worsens, the two Koreas require the same urgency to find a way for the two sides to coexist peacefully. This is not to say that the two Koreas should apply the same solutions to similar problems as the Irish, given that they have a different history, culture, resources, and conditions. 

However, in order to avoid the annihilation of the North and the South and achieve peace, Koreans, like the Irish, must face the gravity of the situation and strive even more desperately to find their own solutions. That is the lesson of the Irish peace process.