There was a time at the height of the Cold War when “MAD” was much talked about as the ultimate strategy in the U.S.-Soviet nuclear confrontation. As some may still remember, it was the acronym for mutual assured destruction, which meant ensuring enough second-strike capability to destroy the military and industrial targets in enemy territory after suffering an initial nuclear attack. Critics called it a strategy of “MADness against MADness,” but the West won the Cold War, possibly thanks to MAD.

More than three decades later, the Korean Peninsula has entered a Cold War situation of a much more precarious type than the earlier global version. North Korea’s demonstration of its nuclear and rocket capabilities, which experts determined to be in a fairly advanced stage, brought fear and anger to us in the South. The anger is partly directed to ourselves: Being incomparably richer and freer than the North, why do we have to feel so powerless against North Korean threats? In a feeble excuse, we may claim that it is because we could not meet the North Korean madness with the same kind of madness.

That restraint was forced on us by the international system that we chose to join. Primarily, it is the military alliance with the United States which is to provide the nuclear umbrella under the mutual defense treaty that has been in effect since shortly after the Korean War. And then there is the multinational Missile Technology Control Regime and of course the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Time has come for us to make a thorough review of our involvement with these international pacts.

Our people’s pride was shattered as they watched the TV footage of the North Korean Gwangmyongsong-4 rocket soaring into the blue sky. The image was overlapped with the dismal sights of our KSLV rockets at the Narodo Island space center several years back. One failed to enter orbit and the second exploded in midair in their 2009 and 2010 launches.

How is it possible that the industrialized South Korea, which is sweeping the world market with cars, ships, smartphones and flat-screen TV sets, lags far behind the impoverished North in making space vehicles? Even the successful third launch at Narodo in 2013 was made on the Russian-made first-stage carrier.

Barred from developing long-range missiles, we concentrated on conventional arms, including fighters, submarines, short-range surface missiles and tanks. Well, throughout the postwar period, we have comfortably engaged in economic development, trusting the mighty nuclear umbrella provided by the strategic bombers, nuclear-powered submarines and aircraft carriers of the U.S. Pacific Command. The U.S. Forces in Korea removed their tactical nuclear weapons when the two Koreas signed a nonaggression treaty and declared the denuclearization of the peninsula in 1991. How short-sighted we all were.

Kim Jong-il’s “Military-First” rule of the North from 1994 to 2011, which partly paralleled two liberal administrations in the South, should be credited for successful manipulation and deception of the international community. He adroitly used the six-party talks arranged by the Chinese as a curtain behind which the North’s privileged scientists poured all available assets to produce nuclear bombs, with meager amounts of plutonium extracted from a research reactor, and assembled long-range missiles with smuggled and locally produced parts.

Here in the South, military dictators during the 1970s and ‘80s meekly accepted the U.S. demand for restraint in the development of their own nuclear and missile technologies as they sought American endorsement of their legitimacy. Civilian democratic governments from the 1990s launched military reform and defense improvement plans, which, however, have left residual effects that only deepen our gloom today.

Arms development and procurement systems have been plagued with corruption and favoritism, with generals and admirals taking bribes from suppliers and retired officers acting as lobbyists for arms dealers. Huge amounts of defense funds were wasted and many newly developed armored vehicles, warships and guns failed to meet their performance standards. Schemes to streamline top-level command structures in the three armed services had to be shelved due to repercussions from active and retired military communities.

Our military has yet to shed the bad legacies and mannerisms from the days of the authoritarian rule, especially in the culture of unfair competition for promotion. The civilian-controlled military has turned into a large bureaucratic organization that is more concerned about preventing safety accidents, particularly suicides, in the barracks than setting up initiatives to increase combat capabilities.

The nation is in a crisis both externally and internally. It was sad to watch our naval units hurrying to collect the debris from the North Korean rocket from the vast waters of the West Sea to help experts’ analyze its mechanism. Our military must do more than that. It should promptly become able to intercept enemy missiles flying into our territory at any altitude. Military inefficiency should never be the price we pay for freedom in our society. We should not only be richer, but stronger than the adversary on the ground, at the sea and in the air.

President Park Geun-hye has two more years in her five-year term. Those two years are about the time that North Korea might need to reach combat deployment of missiles with nuclear payload. The president should not waste a single minute in her duty to protect the nation from North Korean threats. The head of state went to the National Assembly on Tuesday to appeal to the people and their representatives to support government steps, including the closure of the Gaeseong industrial park after 13 years of joint operations with North Koreans.

Yet, we know that the North can hardly be forced to change its course with whatever international sanctions or any other passive measures. We ourselves ought to change, in the system and structure of defense, in the basic concept of reunification and in the pattern of domestic politics, if we expect a change in Pyongyang. As a patriotic citizen of this republic, I hope that President Park, first of all, will reveal a road map for the development of our own nuclear and rocket capabilities.

The enormous economic disparity between the South and the North is a hurdle to the application of the MAD doctrine for the Korean Peninsula. But, a balance of terror with the realization of apocalyptic retaliation can prevent an adventure by a dictator. This looks like the only feasible path we should take to meet the North Korean madness.

By Kim Myong-sik  

Kim Myong-sik is a former editorial writer for The Korea Herald. --Ed.