Images Against Words: German and Soviet Engagements of the Other in World War II (1941-1943)
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This talk presents the prolonged deadly encounter between the Germans and Soviets in World War II as a clash between two different interpretive templates. In engaging the Soviet enemy, Nazi German leaders and soldiers employed visual frames of analysis, centering on physiognomy and racial makeup. As they fought back, the Soviets assessed the German invaders through a palpably textual register, focusing on their psychology and political consciousness. The talk shows how these templates worked in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union and how they collided in the course of the war.
Talk Synopsis:
In this seminar Jochen Hellbeck explains the German-Soviet war as having been a battle of "images against words," a term that reflects both a clash of wartime ideologies and the different choices of media used to express these ideologies. Germany, Hellbeck explains, relied heavily on visual media, using videos and photos as propaganda, while the Soviets used written materials to inspire their soldiers and citizens and to demoralize Germans. Hellbeck focuses on the battle of Stalingrad, which involved a long standoff and extended exposure between the two sides.
The Germans used multimedia, as well as strong visual imagery in written materials, to portray the battle as a conquest of an inferior race and a vast landscape available for the taking. A compilation of German soldiers' reports from the Eastern front in July 1941, and the 1942 war diary of a German journalist embedded with troops in Stalingrad, use descriptive imagery to paint Soviets as mute and beastly and Germans as war heroes full of vitality. Letters from German officials employed vivid language of the landscape, with repeated references to art as representations of German culture and greatness. Wartime photography by German soldiers, many of whom were amateur photographers, was common. The German use of visual media is exemplified by "Soviet Paradise," a 1942 short film made to discredit the Soviet Union's campaign of print propaganda. The film, which employed sophisticated cinematography techniques and very little commentary, was made into an exhibit in Berlin during the summer of 1942 and was visited by 1 million people.
In contrast, the Soviets did not come close to the amount of investment the Germans made in wartime multimedia. Soviet soldiers were forbidden from keeping photos, and only officers could occasionally take them, in the rare event they had access to cameras. Instead, Hellbeck finds ample written records of the Soviet wartime experience. The Soviet military leadership commissioned a war history and invested heavily in the work of Soviet writers and historians, rather than photographers or film crews, to document events on the front lines.
Hellbeck’s presentation also includes analysis of the war records of prominent military personnel on both sides, as well as a review of the sources he used in his research, and his perceptions of how the Germans and Soviets interpreted each other’s wartime records. The next step in Hellbeck's research project will involve comparing techniques used in German and Soviet news film chronicles.
A discussion period following the talk addressed such questions as: did Germans and Soviets employ the same strategies in their military engagements with other countries? Why is there so much portrayal of Soviet POWS in Germany, and so little of German POWs in the Soviet Union? How was the defeat at Stalingrad represented by the Germans and by the Soviets? How did the strategies resonant with the respective sides?
About the Speaker:
Jochen Hellbeck is Associate Professor in the Department of History at Rutgers University. He is the author of Revolution On My Mind: Writing a Diary under Stalin (Harvard, 2006), and is currently writing a book about the clash and the entanglements of Germans and Soviets in the battle of Stalingrad.
Reuben W. Hills Conference Room
Jochen Hellbeck
Associate Professor, History
Speaker
Rutgers University
Seminars
Patterns and Determinants of Price Changes: Analysing Individual Consumer Prices in Austria
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Fukuyama debuts latest book to Stanford community
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On April 11, the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) hosted an event to celebrate the release of Francis Fukuyama's latest book, The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution. The occasion drew an audience of over 100 faculty, students, and members of the community, who were eager to hear Fukuyama introduce the first volume of this "magnum opus," which traces the history of the development of political institutions through the eighteenth century. Fukuyama was joined by two Stanford faculty members to provide commentary on the book; Ian Morris, Professor of Classics and History, and Barry Weingast, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institute.
The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution
Francis Fukuyama
Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2011
608 pages
Fukuyama is the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute and in residence at CDDRL since July 2011, coming to Stanford from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). CDDRL Director, Larry Diamond opened the event by commenting on how CDDRL is the ideal intellectual home for the Origins of Political Order, which examines democracy, development, and the rule of law from an evolutionary perspective. Diamond discussed the richness and breadth of Fukuyama's scholarship, which is not confined to one region or discipline but is truly global and interdisciplinary in nature, underpinning the philosophy and approach of CDDRL's research agenda.
Fukuyama provided the audience with an overview of how he conceived of writing such a sweeping account of political development, which began when his former teacher and mentor, the late Samuel Huntington asked him to write the forward to a new version of the 1968 classic, Political Order in Changing Societies. It occurred to him that there was little scholarship available that focused on where institutions first originated and how they evolved throughout human history. Fukuyama stressed the practical importance of this empirical question and its application to the present day, as Arab states struggle to create viable political institutions in the wake of revolution.
Fukuyama described modern political order as consisting of three characteristics that are the foundational analysis of his book--the state, rule of law, and accountability. In discussing the evolution of the state, Fukuyama characterized it as the "long term historical struggle against a family."
Examining history through an anthropological lens, Fukuyama described early societies as orderly, with specific rules based on biologically grounded mechanisms, favoritism towards kin, and reciprocal altruism. Cooperation among relatives and friends is something that "every human society defaults to in the absence of institutions that provide different incentives," said Fukuyama.
These early social orders evolved into modern states once patrimonialism was replaced by a more impersonal form of politics, and citizens were no longer favored based on their ties to the ruler. Fukuyama traces the first modern state to ancient China during the time of the Qin dynasty in the third century BC, which created an impersonal, rational, and centralized bureaucracy that diverged from the patrimonial systems of the past. Similarly, in the Muslim world a system of military slavery was adopted by the Ottoman empire to break young men's allegiance to their family and generate loyalty to the Sultan.
While state institutions were constructed in the Arab, Hindu, and Chinese worlds, underneath these systems, Fukuyama stressed, are strong kinship groups that continued to influence the formation of the modern state. By contrast, he claimed, "Europe is the only world civilization that gets beyond kinship on a social but not a political level."
Examining the development of rule of law, Fukuyama described it as, "an outgrowth of religious law administered by a hierarchy residing outside the state that puts limits on the executive." In order to institutionalize law, a cadre of legal specialists were trained and law was made coherent through codification.
Something that I find striking about the rise of democracy or accountable government in Europe is how accidental and contingent it is.
- Francis Fukuyama
Fukuyama discussed how the sequence in the development of institutions can often be an accident of history that will ultimately determine its type of governance. "Something that I find striking about the rise of democracy or accountable government in Europe is how accidental and contingent it is," Fukuyama continued, "you would not have democratic institutions in the west were it not for the survival of certain feudal institutions into the modern period."
European monarchical authority was limited by feudal institutions called estates, parliaments, sovereign courts, and the like, consisting of the upper nobility, gentry, and bourgeoisie, which served as a balance of power against the central state. Fukuyama argued that this ultimately led to constitutional governance in England, but not in France, Spain, Russia, or Hungary, were parliaments were weak and divided.
Stanford historian and classicist Ian Morris, author of Why the West Rules for Now, lent an historical account of Fukuyama's book, commenting on the breadth of the scholarship and soundness of his historical judgment, which he views as a rarity in academia. On the whole Morris agreed with Fukuyama's argument, particularly the way he stressed the evolutionary basis of social and political change.
However, he disagreed with a specific detail of Fukuyama's analysis, where he classified the Qin dynasty as the first modern state. Instead, Morris views the Qin as part of a broader package of shifts occurring during the 1st millennium BCE, from China to the Mediterranean basin where patrimonial states evolved toward more "high-end type states," which separate political power from kinship networks.
On a deeper level, Morris believes there are more similarities than differences in patterns of human development. The biggest divergences did not occur until the last 500 years when according to Morris, "geographical forces have driven the rule of law, accountable government, and all that's happened since the French Revolution."
Barry Weingast, Professor of Political Science at Stanford and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, provided a theoretical examination of The Origins of Political Order, discussing the important gap Fukuyama's book fills in defining political development since Huntington's seminal 1968 piece.
Weingast highlighted two areas of the book--the role of ideas and the issue of violence. According to Weingast, the role of ideas is a causal feature of Fukuyama's analysis but he does include ancient Greece and Rome, telling the story of republics and how ideas defined their political development. Weingast discusses the dilemma that lies at the heart of governance from the time of the Romans to the early American republic, which is characterized as a 2,000-year struggle of how to scale-up into larger societies, capable of defending themselves from other larger societies.
Examining the concept of violence, Weingast argues that Fukuyama does not give enough attention to the theoretical element of violence and challenges the way he conceptualizes it through Max Weber's definition of a modern state, which "has a monopoly on the legitimate uses of violence."
The debut of Fukuyama's treatise on political development left everyone in the room with a fresh perspective on where modern institutions evolved from to more fully understand their characteristics and complexities today. We look forward to the second volume of this book, which will bring the story up to the present day.
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Latency and Explicitness: Towards the Transformation of Metaphysics into General Immunology
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This lecture on Thursday, April 28 will follow two workshops, one on Monday, April 25 from 5:30 to 7:30 PM and one on Wednesday, April 27 from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM. Both workshops will take place in Bldg. 260, room 252 (German Studies library). No RSVP is necessary.
About the Lecture:
Since the publication of his Critique of Cynical Reason (German original, 1983; English translation, 1988), Peter Sloterdijk has produced a philosophical body of work – and invented a new shape for the role of the public intellectual – that have given him a unique (perhaps even unprecedented) resonance in German culture. Bringing together, in an epistemologically innovative and always provocative way, discourses and impulses from traditions mainly going back to Nietzsche and Heidegger, Sloterdijk has become one of the most influential and insightful analysts of present-day western culture in its global context. His language and style have opened up surprising convergences between philosophy and literature. Both the content and the forms of his work have made thinkable a productive transformation of the Humanities and Arts inside and outside of the university.
In two workshops and a concluding lecture on the topic “Latency and Explicitness: Towards the Transformation of Metaphysics into General Immunology,” Peter Sloterdijk will address a topic that has been dealt with in several Stanford seminars and workshops over the past year.
Bldg. 460, Terrace Room (4th floor)
Peter Sloterdijk
Philosopher and Writer
Speaker
Lectures
Steven Zipperstein
Department of History
Building 200, Room 11
Stanford, CA 94305-2024
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szipper@stanford.edu
Daniel E. Koshland Professor in Jewish Culture and History
Professor of History
Steven J. Zipperstein is the Daniel E. Koshland Professor in Jewish Culture and History at Stanford University. He has also taught at universities in Russia, Poland, France, and Israel; for six years he taught Jewish history at Oxford University. From 1991-2007, he was Director of the Taube Center for Jewish Studies at Stanford. Zipperstein is the author and editor of nine books including The Jews of Odessa: A Cultural History (1986, winner of the Smilen Prize for the Outstanding book in Jewish history); Elusive Prophet: Ahad Ha’am and the Origins of Zionism (1993, winner of the National Jewish Book Award); Imagining Russian Jewry (1999); and Rosenfeld’s Lives: Fame, Oblivion, and the Furies of Writing (2008, shortlisted for the National Jewish Book Award in Biography, Autobiography and Memoir). His work has been translated into Russian, Hebrew, and French. Zipperstein’s latest book, Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History, published by Liveright/W. W. Norton in 2018, has been widely reviewed in newspapers and magazines in the United States and England including The New York Times, New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, The New Statesman, Literary Review, and the San Francisco Chronicle. The Economist, Ha-Aretz, San Francisco Chronicle and Mosaic Magazine have named it one of the best books of the year. It was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award (History) and Mark Lynton award for the best non-fiction book of 2018.
He has been awarded the Leviant Prize of the Modern Language Association, the Judah Magnes Gold Medal of the American Friends of the Hebrew University, and the Koret Prize for Outstanding Contributions to the American Jewish community. He has held fellowships at the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University, the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Yitzhak Rabin Institute in Tel Aviv, and has twice been a Visiting Professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Sciences Sociales. In spring 2014, he was the first Jacob Kronhill Scholar at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, in New York. At Stanford, and earlier at Oxford and UCLA, he has supervised the dissertation work of more than thirty students now teaching at universities and colleges in the United States, Canada, and elsewhere. He has delivered keynote addresses and endowed lectures at several dozen universities in the United States and abroad including the Hebrew University, Jerusalem; Central European University, Budapest; Emory; UCLA; University of Wisconsin, Madison; Vanderbilt, and the National Yiddish Book Center.
Zipperstein’s articles have appeared in The New York Times Sunday Book Review, the Washington Post, The New Republic, the Jewish Review of Books, Chronicle of Higher Education and in many scholarly journals. He was an editor of Jewish Social Studies for twenty years, and the book series Stanford Studies in Jewish History and Culture for a quarter of a century. He is immediate past Chair of the Academic Council of the Center for Jewish History, in New York. Together with Anita Shapira, he is series editor of the Yale University Press/Leon Black Foundation Jewish Lives volumes that were named in 2015 the best books of the year by the National Jewish Book Council -- the first time a book series has won this prize. Some forty-five Jewish Lives books have already appeared, and Zipperstein is currently at work on a biography of Philip Roth for the series. He and his wife Susan Berrin live in Berkeley.
Affiliated faculty at The Europe Center
Cascading Enrichment: Are Gas-Centrifuges Spinning the World?
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Matthias Englert is a postdoctoral fellow at CISAC. Before joining CISAC in 2009, he was a researcher at the Interdisciplinary Research Group Science Technology and Security (IANUS) and a PhD student at the department of physics at Darmstadt University of Technology in Germany.
His major research interests include nonproliferation, disarmament, arms control, nuclear postures and warheads, fissile material and production technologies, the civil use of nuclear power and its role in future energy scenarios and the possibility of nuclear terrorism. His research during his stay at CISAC focuses primarily on the technology of gas centrifuges for uranium enrichment, the implications of their use for the nonproliferation regime, and on technical and political measures to manage proliferation risks.
Englert has participated in projects investigating technical aspects of the concept of proliferation resistance with topics including the conversion of research reactors, uranium enrichment with gas centrifuges, reducing plutonium stockpiles with reactor-based options, spallation neutron sources and fusion power plants. Additional research topics have included fissile material stockpiles, fuel-cycles and accelerator driven systems.
Although a substantial part of his professional work recently has been technical he is equally interested in and actively studies the historical, social and political aspects of the use of nuclear technologies. Research interests include the dispute about Article IV of the NPT, the future development of the NPT regime, possibilities for a nuclear weapons-free world, preventive arms control, and the history and development of proliferation relevant programs. By studying contemporary theory in philosophy through the interaction of science, technology and society, Englert has acquired analytical tools to reflect on approaches describing or addressing the problem of ambivalent technology.
Englert is a vice speaker of the working group Physics and Disarmament of the German Physical Society (DPG) and a board member of the German Research Association for Science, Disarmament and Security (FONAS).
Reuben W. Hills Conference Room
Matthias Englert
Postdoctoral Fellow, CISAC
Speaker
David Elliott
Affiliate, CISAC
Commentator
Seminars
Hungary, the EU, and the U.S.
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As Hungary took over the EU presidency, the EU member states watch the crisis in the Middle East unfold with great concern. H.E. Dr. Gyorgy Szapary, the newly appointed Hungarian Ambassador to WDC, will discuss the political, economic, security and social implications for Hungary and the Europe of the last weeks events.
An economist by training, Dr. Szapary spent several years at the IMF in WDC, and is in a unique position to discuss the current events and their potential effects.
Jointly sponsored by The Europe Center at FSI, and the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies.
Philippines Conference Room
H.E. Mr. György Szapáry
Ambassador of the Republic of Hungary to the United States
Speaker
Seminars
Orbital Debris-Debris Collision Avoidance
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Jan Stupl's research concerns the current developments in laser technology regarding a possible application of lasers as an anti-satellite weapon (ASAT), as well as the proliferation of ballistic missiles. The research on laser ASATs focuses on damage mechanisms, the potential sources and countries of origin of laser ASATs and ways to curb their international proliferation. Regarding missiles, Stupl is interested in the methods which are used to acquire ballistic missiles and possible ways to control this process.
Before coming to CISAC, Jan was a Research Fellow at the Institute of Peace Research and Security Policy (IFSH) at the University of Hamburg, Germany. His PhD dissertation was a physics-based analysis of future of High Energy Lasers and their application for missile defense and focused on the Airborne Laser missile defense system. This work was jointly supervised by the IFSH, the Institute of Laser and System Technologies at Hamburg University of Technology and the physics department of Hamburg University, where he earned his PhD in 2008. Stupl's interest in security policy and international politics was fuelled by an internship at the United Nations in New York in 2003.
In this seminar, Stupl will discuss a ground-based laser system that uses radiation pressure to prevent collisions between debris objects in space. He will discuss the importance of avoiding such collisions, which can result in a runaway chain-reaction, increasing the number of fragments and hence the risk to active satellites dramatically.
Reuben W. Hills Conference Room
Jan M. Stupl
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jan.stupl@nasa.gov
Affiliate
Jan Stupl is an affiliate and a former postdoctoral fellow at CISAC. He is currently a Research Scientist with SGT, a government contractor, and works in the Mission Design Division at NASA Ames Research Center (Mountain View, CA). In the Mission Design Division, Jan conducts research on novel methods for laser communication and space debris mitigation and supports concept development for space missions.
Before his current position, Jan was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University until 2011, investigating technical and policy implications of high power lasers for missile defense and as anti-satellite weapons (ASAT), as well as the proliferation of ballistic missiles. The research on laser ASATs focuses on damage mechanisms, the potential sources and countries of origin of laser ASATs and ways to curb their international proliferation. Before coming to CISAC, Jan was a Research Fellow at the Institute of Peace Research and Security Policy (IFSH) at the University of Hamburg, Germany. His PhD dissertation was a physics-based analysis of future of High Energy Lasers and their application for missile defense and focused on the Airborne Laser missile defense system. This work was jointly supervised by the IFSH, the Institute of Laser and System Technologies at Hamburg University of Technology and the physics department of Hamburg University, where he earned his PhD in 2008. His interest in security policy and international politics was fuelled by an internship at the United Nations in New York in 2003.
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Rebecca Slayton
(DISCUSSANT) Affiliated Faculty at CISAC; Lecturer for the Science, Technology, and Society Program at Stanford
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Prepare now for possible change in North Korea
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When major political change in North Korea will occur is difficult to predict, but it is inevitable, suggests David Straub, associate director of the Stanford Korean Studies Program. In a March 21, 2011, Seoul Shinmun op-ed, Straub urges, "Since we cannot predict exactly when or how change will come to North Korea or what its nature will be, South Koreans and their allies and friends abroad need to begin to prepare now for many possibilities." English- and Korean-language versions of the text are both available. The op-ed is part of a continuing series on this issue.
Sooner or later, I believe, there will be major change in
North Korea. The system may be very strong, but it is also very brittle. Without
democratic electoral processes and free speech, smooth and gradual adjustments
cannot be made to meet changing circumstances and the needs of the people.
-David Straub
Korean Studies Program
In the mid-1990s, after the death of Kim Il Sung, I heard
many top U.S. officials, speaking privately, predict that the North Korean
regime would collapse in a matter of just a few years, if not months. I was
younger then and assumed they knew what they were talking about. They didn't.
They didn't know much about North Korea. They simply compared it to the situation
in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, where communist regimes had just
collapsed, and thought the same thing would happen in the very different
circumstances of North Korea. Everyone was saying it would happen, so it must
true, people assumed. Americans don't like the North Korean regime, so wishful
thinking also contributed to this consensus among Americans.
These days, as another leadership succession is underway in North Korea, many people again are speculating about the "collapse" of the Pyongyang regime. The fact of the matter is that no one, not even in Pyongyang, really knows what is going to happen there. I believe there could be dramatic change in the regime in North Korea even as you are reading this, but I also believe it is possible that the regime could last many decades more.
A former colleague, Bill Newcomb, recently compared the situation in North Korea to the buildup of pressure along a fault zone. No one, he noted, can predict when a particular earthquake will occur and how large it will be, but scientists today can say with confidence that a major earthquake will inevitably occur in a certain area eventually. Pyongyang is indeed like that.
Sooner or later, I believe, there will be major change in North Korea. The system may be very strong, but it is also very brittle. Without democratic electoral processes and free speech, smooth and gradual adjustments cannot be made to meet changing circumstances and the needs of the people.
Whether the political earthquake in Pyongyang occurs sooner or later, it is only prudent to prepare thoroughly. The United States and other countries will help the Republic of Korea when dramatic change occurs in North Korea, but it will be the Republic of Korea and the people of North and South Korea who, inevitably, will bear the most risk and stand to gain the most.
Since we cannot predict exactly when or how change will come to North Korea or what its nature will be, South Koreans and their allies and friends abroad need to begin to prepare now for many possibilities. I understand that some South Koreans are concerned that such a discussion will offend and anger Pyongyang and may cause its own problems. But the consequences of not preparing could be far worse. This should not be a matter of pushing for collapse, much less risking war, but for preparing prudently to meet real dangers and real opportunities.
South Koreans need to pool their wisdom and their resources, so that they will be able to respond quickly and effectively no matter what eventually happens in North Korea. There needs to be much more thorough study and debate, both within the government and among the citizenry, about how to deal with various possible crises on the Korean Peninsula, including unification.
I worked on German affairs in the U.S. State Department shortly after German unification, and observed as the government in Bonn, while making heroic efforts, made many serious mistakes. Policies regarding currency unification, wages and pensions, property claims and many other issues caused human suffering and national problems that linger today, twenty years later. How great is the understanding in South Korea among government officials and the public about these issues?
One of the things that many South Koreans seem to have concluded from German unification is that unification will be too risky and too costly. There certainly will be risks and the costs will be great when unification occurs. But unification may occur whether all South Koreans want it or not, and whether they are ready or not. And most costs, if carefully planned, will actually be investments. Moreover, there will not only be risks; there will be opportunities for enormous gain. Unified Korea could be stronger, safer, more prosperous, and happier, not just for the people of North Korea but for all Koreans.
We all remember the earthquake that hit a very poor and unprepared Haiti last year, killing at least 100,000 people and leaving a million homeless. The terrible earthquake that Japan has just experienced was 1,000 times more powerful. Just imagine the consequences if Japan had not prepared as well as it had. It is time for the Republic of Korea to begin to prepare seriously for the eventual political earthquake on the Korean Peninsula.
[나와 통일]4. 스트라우브 스탠퍼드대 부소장
1994년 김일성이 사망한 뒤, 나는 미국의 많은 고위관리들이 사견으로 북한 정권이 몇 개월내 혹은 몇년 내 붕괴할 것이라고 예측하는 것을 들었다. 그때 나는 그들 스스로가 무엇을 얘기하고 있는지 알고 있다고 추측했다. 그러나 그들은 몰랐다. 그들은 단순히 북한을, 공산주의 정권이 붕괴됐던 소련과 동유럽의 상황과 비교했고, 이 같은 상황이 매우 다른 환경의 북한에서도 발생할 것이라고 생각했다. 미국인들은 북한정권을 좋아하지 않기 때문에 (북한이 망할 것이라는) ‘희망적 생각'(wishful thinking)도 이런 일치된 예측에 기여했다.
▲ 데이비드 스트라우브 스탠퍼드대 아태연구소 한국학 부소장은 남북한의 통일 비용이 결국은 투자가 될 것이라고 강조했다.
요즘 북한에서 권력 승계가 진행되면서, 많은 사람들이 북한 정권의 ‘붕괴'에 대해 다시 추측하고 있다. 이 문제와 관련해 명확한 사실은, 누구도, 심지어 평양에 있는 사람도, 거기서 실제 무슨 일이 일어나고 있는지 정확히 모른다는 것이다. 나는 북한 정권에 상당한 변화가 있을 수 있지만, 그 정권이 수십년 더 지속하는 것이 가능하다고도 생각한다.
●北시스템 강한만큼 깨지기도 쉬워
전직 동료인 윌리엄 뉴콤(전 미 재무부 경제자문관)은 최근 북한 상황을 ‘단층대를 따라 고조되는 압력'에 비유했다. 그는, 누구도 어떤 특별한 지진이 언제 발생할 것이고 얼마나 클 것인지 예측할 수 없지만, 오늘날 과학자들은 대규모 지진이 불가피하게 어느 지역에서 결국 발생할 것이라고 확신을 갖고 말할 수 있다고 지적했다.
평양은 정말로 이런 상황과 같다. 나는 조만간 북한에 큰 변화가 있을 것이라고 생각한다. 북한의 시스템은 매우 강할 수 있지만 역시나 매우 깨지기 쉽다. 민주주의적 선거 과정과 표현의 자유 없이, 사람들의 수요와 변하는 환경을 충족시키기 위한 평탄하고 단계적인 조정은 불가능하다.
평양에서 ‘정치적인 지진'이 조만간 일어나든 아니든, 철저하게 대비하는 것이 현명하다. 미국과 다른 나라들은 북한에 극적인 변화가 일어날 경우 한국을 도울 것이다. 그러나 남한과 남북한 사람들이 불가피하게 가장 위험을 감수하고, 가장 많은 이득도 얻게 될 것이다.
우리는 변화가 언제 어떻게 올지, 그것의 모습이 무엇일지 정확하게 예측하기 어렵다. 때문에 남한 사람들과 동맹국들, 우방들은 지금부터 많은 가능성에 대해 준비해야 한다.
나는 일부 남한 사람들이 그런 논의가 북한을 화나게 할 것이고 북한 내 문제를 유발할 것이라고 걱정하는 것을 알고 있다.
그러나 준비하지 않는 것의 결과는 훨씬 나쁠 수 있다. 이것은 붕괴를 재촉하는 문제가 아니라, 실제로 맞닥뜨릴 위험과 기회에 대해 신중하게 준비해 나가야 하는 문제다.
남한 사람들은 북한에 결국 무슨 일이 발생하든 신속하고 효과적으로 대응할 수 있도록 지혜와 자원을 공유할 필요가 있다. 정부와 민간에서 통일을 포함, 한반도에서 발생 가능한 다양한 위기들에 대해 어떻게 대처할 것인지에 대한 더 많은 철저한 연구와 논쟁이 필요하다.
나는 독일 통일 직후 미 국무부에서 독일 담당 업무를 했다. 당시 독일 정부가 용감하게 노력했지만 심각한 실수를 많이 한 것을 관측했다. 화폐 단일화, 임금, 연금, 재산권 등과 관련된 정책들이 20년이 지난 오늘날에도 맴돌고 있는 국민 고통과 문제를 야기했다. 한국의 관료들과 대중 가운데 이런 문제들에 대해 얼마나 이해하고 있는가?
●신속 대응위한 지혜·자원 공유를
많은 남한 사람들이 독일 통일로부터 결론을 내린 것으로 보이는 것들 중 하나는, 통일은 매우 위험하고 비용이 많이 들 것이라는 것이다. 통일이 이뤄질 때 위험과 비용은 당연히 클 것이다.
그러나 통일은 남한 사람들이 원하든 원치 않든, 준비가 돼 있든 아니든 일어날 수 있다. 그리고, 대부분의 비용은, 주의 깊게 계획된다면, 실제로는 투자가 될 것이다. 게다가 위험만 있는 것은 아니다. 엄청난 이득을 위한 기회도 있을 것이다.
통일된 한국은 단지 북한 사람들뿐 아니라 모든 한국인들을 더 강하고, 안전하고, 번영하고, 행복하게 할 수 있다.
우리는 지난해 준비되지 않은 아이티를 강타한 지진의 엄청난 피해를 기억한다. 최근 일본의 대지진은 아이티 지진보다 1000배 강력했다. 일본이 준비하지 않았다면 어떤 결과가 발생했을지 상상해 보라. 이제 남한은 한반도의 정치적 지진에 대해 심각하게 준비해야 한다.
번역·정리 김미경기자 chaplin7@seoul.co.kr
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