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The geopolitical context of Yoon’s martial law gambit

Published: 12 Dec. 2024, 19:46 Updated: 12 Dec. 2024, 19:52

Michael Green
The author is CEO of the U.S. Studies Centre at the University of Sydney and Henry A. Kissinger Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

President Yoon Suk Yeol’s six-hour martial law gambit stunned not only Koreans but the world. U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Yoon’s own party in the National Assembly learned about the martial law declaration on television when everyone else did. The current crisis reveals a stunning lack of political and diplomatic judgment given the controversial history of martial law in Korea and the stakes on the Korean peninsula. The opposition party’s obstructionism in the National Assembly is not beyond criticism to be sure, but historians will conclude that President Yoon played the wrong card poorly in response to his political setbacks.

All attention will now focus on the denouement of Mr. Yoon. However, policymakers in Seoul will have to keep one disciplined eye on the international scene as well. This crisis in Korean politics is not happening in a vacuum. It is part of a much broader pattern of division and dysfunctionality within the leading democracies that taken together could prove a dangerous temptation for authoritarian states like North Korea, Russia, China and Iran.

As the scholar Robert Kagan has written, authoritarian states have repeatedly fallen for what he calls the “America trap” — what occurs when dictators mistake the noisy democratic process as a sign of weakness and then foolishly strike to gain advantage. For example, Kaiser Willhelm II of Germany saw American resistance to joining World War One as evidence that he could get away with unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic, triggering America’s entry into the First World War and the defeat of his Army on the Western Front. Adolf Hitler and Hideki Tojo similarly assumed that the American political debates about isolationism signalled lack of national willpower, only to be overwhelmed by American firepower after Japan foolishly attacked Pearl Harbor and Hitler declared war on the United States a few days later. And of course, Kim Il Sung made the exact same mistake in June 1950, misreading the resolve of the free world and suffering devastating damage as a result.

Deterrence today is much stronger than it was before these wars broke out in the 20th Century, but there is still a risk that totalitarian states might again see weakness, division, and lack of resolve in the political dramas unfolding not only in Seoul but also in Washington, Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, Canberra, and Ottawa. The United States is Exhibit A. Donald Trump has not yet taken office but is already turbocharging American political debate with his controversial choices for cabinet positions and threats of tariffs against America’s closest allies. As Korea’s National Assembly was resisting martial law, the French government was falling in Paris. The German government collapsed only weeks before that and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is barely clinging to power with a minority government after disastrous election results in October. In Australia, the Labor government also looks set to go into minority status in elections next year, if not lose power outright. And Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau appears all but certain to lose to the conservatives in his election next year.

Some of these doomed governments are on the right while others are on the left. Regardless of ideology, they are all struggling for credibility at a time of inflation and post-Covid distrust of institutions, fuelled by partisan social media and disinformation by nefarious domestic and international actors.

These political dramas raise questions about national resolve and strategic direction, particularly with respect to Korea’s latest crisis. The questions it raises are obvious. Will Seoul have the bandwidth to continue acting on the regional and international diplomatic stage? Will the opposition party now feel empowered not only to impeach President Yoon but also to reverse his successful Indo-Pacific strategy or reignite tension with Japan to the delight of Beijing and Pyongyang? Will the Korean military be able to restore credibility after the defense minister’s role in the martial law declaration?

In fact, the normative and institutional foundations of the major democracies are deeply entrenched and the alliances that bind them together are robust. Koreans in the National Assembly demonstrated that their democracy is here to stay, even if the drama that unfolded was jarring. In both Korea and Japan 90% of the public support their alliances with the United States and in American polling support for these alliances remains strong and bipartisan among the public and in Congress. Security and economic cooperation between and among Korea, Japan, Australia, India, the United States and other like-minded democracies is on a robust trajectory. Despite the travails within the major democracies, there is a shared recognition that the revisionist strategies of the authoritarian states threaten values we all share.

It is also worth remembering that authoritarian states are also beset by political and strategic setbacks. The Chinese economy is struggling; Russia has suffered 300,000 casualties and 40,000 defections in Ukraine and the Ruble is collapsing; North Korea’s economy is moribund despite advances in its missile programs; and Iran has suffered major setbacks to its proxies in Lebanon, Gaza and Syria. These weaknesses could mean that Beijing, Moscow, Pyongyang and Tehran remain cautious. But weakness can also prompt authoritarian leaders to gamble on expansion if they think that their adversaries are inward-looking, weak, or distracted.

That is why the ruling and Opposition parties in Korea must not lose sight of the international implications of their next moves. Korea has a tragic history of domestic competitors prejudicing their own internal victories over the national interest, with dangerous results as larger powers exploit their divisions.

But Korea is also a powerful example to the world precisely because the Korean people fought for and treasure their democracy. Now is the time to demonstrate both the resilience of Korean democracy and the ability of the Korean people to continue as a net source of stability and prosperity in uncertainty times. The world will be watching.