Prepare for an armed clash with North Korea

The government on Tuesday decided to suspend the effectiveness of the Sept. 19 military agreement between South and North Korea. It took the action in response to the North’s launch of balloons carrying waste and excrement to the South, its jamming of GPS signals in the West Sea, and its firing of 18 ballistic missiles into the East Sea. It is North Korea that provoked such a reaction from South Korea. But the government must prepare for the possibility of North Korea launching a surprise attack after the decision.

The Sept. 19 military agreement is an annex to the joint declaration of peace between President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang. The annex contained a ban on engaging in hostile activities toward each other. At that time, the Moon administration was elated as if a permanent peace has arrived on the Korean Peninsula.

But North Korea repeatedly violated the military agreement. In June 2020, it demolished the inter-Korean liaison office in Kaesong and showed animosity toward the South by laying mines on major roads connecting the two countries. North Korea launched ICBMs over and over in a brazen defiance of UN Security Council resolutions. The Sept. 19 agreement became almost null and void from the Moon administration.

After North Korea launched a military reconnaissance satellite last November, South Korea suspended the effectiveness of some articles of the military agreement. Pyongyang then declared a complete revocation of the agreement. However, our government opted for a suspension of its effectiveness, not a total scrapping of the agreement, to leave room for resolving the issue.

The Defense Ministry plans to restart all military activities constrained by the agreement, including shelling drills within five kilometers (3.1 miles) of the Military Demarcation Line and shooting exercises in northwestern islands in the West Sea. The military are also preparing to reactivate a number of loudspeakers targeting North Koreans across the border.

The North will likely respond to the South’s decision with a surprise attack in the border, as seen in the Cheonan sinking in March 2010 and the Yeonpyeong shelling in November that year. In August 2015, North Korea even stealthily planted wooden box mines in the border and critically injured two South Korean soldiers. The North is expected to send filthy balloons again after civic groups in the South decided to fly propaganda leaflets across the border on Thursday.

Our government must be thoroughly prepared for a possible armed conflict after the suspension of the effectiveness of the military agreement. It must do its best to ease people’s deepening security concerns before it is too late.