I want to make three short, unrelated observations about life right next to North Korea.
1. Ideologues. I have been reflecting that perhaps all the ramp-up of tensions (per the media, anyway) doesn't really worry me because I am a child of the latter half of the Cold War, when we all lived under an umbrella of irrational ideology-driven nuclear oblitaration, all the time. Having grown up under the paradigm of Brezhnev v Nixon, Park v Kim doesn't feel that weird or uncomfortable to me. It's like the mini cold war. All very nostalgic. Heh.
2. Hipsters. Day-to-day life in South Korea doesn't really seem to care about what's going on. For the South Koreans themselves, there's PSY and his latest antics (exhibit 1):
Clearly it's just about decadence and the self-indulgent, half-ironic denunciation of decadence, with little regard for broad ideological or geopolitical concerns.
For the expats such as myself, there's lots of alcohol and fun-with-friends and ain't-this-a-neverending-party (exhibit 2):
The expat club is not a club I really enjoy being a member of, but I accept my membership, and – sans the copious quantities of alcohol and the fun touring around in my own particular case – the above video is a more-or-less accurate and not entirely unsympathetic portrayal of daily expat life in South Korea. At the least, it rejects the alarmism rampant in the international press, if only to replace it with a sort of sentimental hipsterism.
Is that too harsh? I don't really mean to be – maybe I'm just resentful because my life in Korea is more boring than that because I'm feeling old and run down, lately – because hipsterish partying and running around might be fun when you're in your 20's, but in your 40's it just looks silly and vaguely irresponsible. The one cultural value that unites South Koreans and Americans almost perfectly: ageism and obsession with youth culture. OK – that was a bitter digression.
3. Enablers. A foreign policy analyst named Edward Luttwak has an essay at Foreign Policy magazine (the site is "gated" – but registering is free, just very annoying) which places a large part of the blame for the North Korean crisis squarely on the South Koreans' denialism and "enabling." I very much recommend reading this article. I actually agree with him on his analysis of causes, but his apparently "get tough" prescriptions are scary. Here's my amateur response: Of course South Korea is enabling North Korea; but that's OK – it's really better than having a giant war… so, have at it – enable some more!
If you have a crazy, delusional sibling, what's smarter: confronting him such that both of you end up dead or injured, or going along with his craziness because at some level you care about him and you have feelings of human compassion and at some point he may realize on his own he has major issues and will seek help? The parallels aren't perfect, but they illustrate my point, I hope. You might object that the metaphor is broken, because there are millions of innocent bystanders being harmed by this crazy sibling. But in fact, it's also true that millions more innocent bystanders would be harmed by any kind of violent intervention. Let's tweek the hypothetical slightly: yes, it's true the crazy sibling locks his children in the basement and tortures them, but it's essentially guaranteed that if you try to confront him violently, your own children will be killed or gravely harmed too. He's got bombs pointed at your house! So… what course of action minimizes harm?