‘North and South Korea are, technically, still at war’. The current international tensions generated by the test- firing of a long-range rocket by North Korea on April 5, focuses on the essential validity of this oft- heard pronouncement by watchers of world politics. Reconciliation, in other words, is yet to return to the Korean peninsula although it is nearly six decades since the freezing of inter-Korean armed hostilities in 1951.

While South Korea, Japan and China, who have been part of the tangled inter-state politics of the Korean peninsula, are to a great extent integrated into the current global political economy, North Korea is not. It remains mired in a Cold War mindset and here’s where the rub is. Pyongyang’s foreign policy thinking continues to be largely determined by Cold War considerations. As long as this is so, even a degree of concord in Korean affairs may prove difficult to come by.

This is a huge poser for the Barack Obama administration. Integration of a ‘Stalinist’ state into a world system which has conferred ‘sovereignty’ on capital is going to prove an exacting undertaking and this is the challenge facing the West, as regards North Korea. Whereas China has opted for economic pragmatism and finds integration into a capitalism-dominated world system relatively trouble-free, the same could not be true of North Korea which has chosen to be inward-looking and isolationist in its domestic and foreign policy orientation. The task before the West would be to prove that development, in the truest sense, is not possible within the ‘closed economy’ paradigm and that integration into the current global system is essential for material advancement. As such, immense patience would need to be exercised by the West in its dealings with North Korea.

Basically, the West would need to establish that economic equity is possible within a market-oriented, liberalized economy and this would prove enormously difficult in the present times when the capitalist system is perceived as having collapsed. Nevertheless, it is to the extent to which the West could do this, which could coax North Korea into forging amicable relations with the West and enable it to relate on more cordial terms to the rest of the parties to the six- party, inter-Korean reconciliation talks – the US, China, Russia, South Korea and Japan.

Right now, the West would find the going rough in efforts at normalizing relations with North Korea on account of the formers anxiety on maintaining the global military balance in its favour. The international furore over North Korea test-firing a long-range rocket was triggered by the fear that it was exploring the possibility of devising a ballistic missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads. If this surmise proves correct, the international military balance in the region would be destabilized, besides the West’s near monopoly strangle- hold over nuclear weapons, further weakening. Thus, the West’s efforts to bring North Korea out of the continuing Cold War ethos in which it is enveloping itself, are likely to be further complicated by its anxiety to preserve the current global power balance in its favour.

Right now, Pyongyang is telling the West very plainly that it would not be dictated to on the nuclear issue. It has reportedly shown UN nuclear weapons inspectors the door and threatened to resume work on its nuclear programme. It has also said that it is abandoning the six-party reconciliation talks and said that it would ‘not be bound by any agreement reached at the talks’. North Korea also said that it aims to reactivate its partly-dismantled Yongbyon nuclear facility.

Reacting to these perceived confrontational initiatives, the White House called on North Korea ‘to cease its provocative threats, respect the will of the international community and honour its international commitments and obligations’.

In what was seen as a historic breakthrough in US-North Korea relations, North Korea, in the latter half of last year, partly dismantled its Yongbyon nuclear reactor and handed over what was believed was a ‘complete declaration of its nuclear activities’, in return for the US removing it from the list of countries sponsoring terror. However, in December 2008, Pyongyang slowed work on dismantling its nuclear programme in reaction to a US decision to suspend energy aid. In January 2009, North Korea said it was abandoning all military and political deals with the US in view of what it said were ‘hostile acts’.

North Korea’s threat to continue its nuclear programme is seen as a violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1718 of 2006, which called on North Korea not to ‘conduct any further nuclear tests or launch a ballistic missile’ and to ‘suspend all activities related to its ballistic missile programme’.

While North Korea’s threat and related perceptions call for patient, diplomatic handling by the West in particular, the two Koreas could get on to a dangerous collision course if South Korea, in response to these developments joins what is described as the US-led Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), which would allow the South to intercept any ships heading for the North which it suspects are carrying weapons and other material coming under current international sanctions. In the event of a confrontation of this kind between the Koreas, the US and other ‘extra-regional’ powers, such as, Japan, China and even Russia, would consider it obligatory to get embroiled in it.

This is mainly on account of the fact that for decades the Korean peninsula has proved to be of immense strategic significance for some of the world’s foremost powers. For instance, for Japan and China, it has been a veritable natural bridge connecting the two countries. Either of the traditional adversaries which acquires control over the peninsula could use it as a buffer against perceived military advances by the other. Over the centuries, both China and Japan acquired control over the region at numerous times.

For the US, control over the peninsula has enabled it to enjoy a considerable military presence in the Far East. Since the peninsula is the virtual gateway to some of the fastest growing economies in the East, control over the peninsula is central to Western plans of economically penetrating the world’s ‘growth regions’. Hence, the importance of neutralizing the ‘red’ threat in the peninsula.