North Korea today threatened military action against South Korea if it did not end its propaganda broadcasts along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) within 48 hours. The broadcasts against the North are being systematically blared by loudspeakers over the border.   

South Korea resumed the broadcasts earlier this week after an 11-year hiatus, in retaliation for North Korea’s planting landmines just outside a South Korean DMZ guard post that crippled two South Korean soldiers on Aug. 4.

David Straub, associate director of the Korea Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and a former Korean affairs director at the U.S. Department of State, offers insights on the situation. Straub also spoke on PRI's "The World" radioshow on Aug. 20, the audioclip and summary can be accessed by clicking here.

What’s behind the current tensions on the Korean Peninsula?

Fundamentally, the current situation is just another symptom of the underlying problem, which is the division of Korea into two competing states, with one of them—North Korea—having a Stalinist totalitarian system and a Maoist-style cult of personality. Since North Korea can’t compete with the South economically and diplomatically, it uses the threat of force or the actual use of it to try to intimidate South Korea. The North Koreans know that South Korea tends to “blink first” and step back because it is democratic and its leaders are concerned about civilian casualties.

The current situation is also related to the leadership transition in North Korea, with leader Kim Jong Un succeeding his father Kim Jong Il three years ago. Kim Jong Un still feels insecure, which is clearly evidenced by his execution of his powerful uncle Jang Seong-taek in 2013 and many other leaders there as well. To solidify support for his rule, he also manufactures a South Korean threat to rally his people behind him.

What does North Korea want?

North Korea’s immediate demand is that South Korea stop its propaganda broadcasts across the DMZ. The South Korean broadcasts criticize the North Korean system and its leaders, which is something that the North, with its cult of personality, can’t accept. But the South resumed the broadcasts only because the North Koreans recently snuck into the South Korean side of the DMZ and viciously planted landmines just outside a South Korean guard post. These were clearly intended to maim South Korean soldiers. They did just that, blowing the legs off two young men.

The North Korean regime’s long-term aim is not just to survive but also to get the upper hand on South Korea, and eventually try again to reunify the peninsula on its own terms. That explains why North Korea behaves as it does, rather than reform its system and reconcile with the South.

The North also demands an end to all U.S. and South Korean military exercises on the peninsula—even though the North has a much larger military than the South and U.S. forces there combined and is developing nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. Ultimately, the North wants to end the U.S.-South Korean alliance and see U.S. forces withdrawn from the peninsula, in the belief that it will open the way to eventual victory over the South.

Why did the South resume the broadcasts? Was it a good idea?

South Korea resumed the loudspeaker broadcasts in retaliation for the maiming of two of its soldiers on August 4th. Rather than retaliate by attacking militarily, the South resumed the loudspeaker broadcasts because the South Korean military knows that North Korean leaders hate them.

The South Korean military believes that North Korean leaders hate the broadcasts because they are effective in educating young North Korean soldiers and civilians in earshot about the nature of the regime and its leaders. The South Korean military seems to assume that the broadcasts are effective in that regard because they anger the North Korean leaders so much. But I think the reason the broadcasts anger the North Korean leaders is due to the cult of personality. The North Korean system can’t accept the idea of its leaders being criticized.

So I don’t think it was necessarily a wise step on the part of the South Korean military to resume the broadcasts. On the other hand, politically, by crippling two South Korean soldiers, the North Koreans had left South Korea with no option but to respond in some way. After the North Koreans killed fifty South Koreans in two separate sneak attacks five years ago, the South Korean government warned that it was not going to sit back the next time. The resumption of the broadcasts has further raised tensions but, frankly, given the danger of war on the peninsula, the South doesn’t have a lot of good ways to respond to North Korean provocations.

How serious is the situation?

North Korea has now threatened military action in 48 hours if South Korea doesn’t end the propaganda broadcasts. The North often makes threats. Usually, it doesn’t carry them out, but sometimes it does.

The United States and South Korea are conducting an annual military exercise together in the South until the end of August—something else that the North Koreans are demanding an end to. Most experts feel that the North is unlikely to launch a major provocation while the American presence is bolstered and the U.S. and South Korean militaries are paying full attention. The North Korean leaders know they are weaker than our side, so they usually avoid frontal assaults and instead engage in sneak attacks, at times and places and in ways of their own choosing.

There is more uncertainty in recent years because of the aggressive and threatening behavior thus far of Kim Jong Un, who is young and inexperienced. He seems anxious about his position in the North and prepared to take risks to bolster it, including rallying the people behind him by raising tensions with the South. We also don’t know if the North feels freer to engage in major provocations because it has developed at least a handful of nuclear devices since its first nuclear test in 2006.

So I myself wouldn’t be afraid to visit Seoul now but the situation bears even closer watching than usual.

Russian leaders are grappling with difficult and complex foreign policy choices on Afghanistan in the wake of the U.S. and NATO military exit, a Stanford expert says.

"Russian policy in Afghanistan is at a crossroads, with worsening relations with the West looming against the background of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict," wrote Kathryn Stoner, a Stanford political scientist and senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, in a new article in the journal Asian Survey.

The Soviet experience in Afghanistan in the 1980s left haunting memories in the minds of Russian policymakers, "who have no interest in being trapped again in a war they can neither afford nor win," wrote Stoner in the article, titled "Russia’s 21st Century Interests in Afghanistan: Resetting the Bear Trap."

The Soviet-Afghan War from 1979 to 1989 was called a "Bear Trap" by some Western media, and thought to be a contributing factor to the fall of the Soviet Union.

Power vacuum perils

Stoner said that as the U.S. pullout deadline approached in December 2014, Russia was critical of the arguably hasty retreat of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. Some troops remained behind in an advisory role.

As she described it, Moscow's leaders thought a sudden power vacuum would leave a variety of threats within Afghanistan – weapons proliferation, corrupt police, a rising drug trade and radical Islamists, for example.

Of the latter, recent news reports indicate the Islamic State group has established a presence in Afghanistan; Russia has urged the United Nations Security Council to stop its expansion.

"On the ISIS vs. Taliban question," Stoner said in an interview, "it is a question of the lesser of two evils, of course, from a Russian perspective."

For Russia, she said, the Islamic State group may be more undesirable than the Taliban in Afghanistan because they are attempting to recruit young Russian Muslims to their cause, which could breed homegrown terrorists who return to Russia with the group's message and training.

"The other issue is that although Afghanistan was brutally ruled under the Taliban, it was more stable than it is currently. Still, neither group is pro-foreigner or pro-Russian especially," she added.

As Stoner wrote, in the interest of stability Russia has expressed possible support for moderate rank-and-file Taliban to be included in the Afghan government.

"Russian leaders point to the fact that heroin trafficking was less under the Taliban than in the past five years under the U.S./NATO coalition," noted Stoner, adding that narcotics were reaching the Russian population.

Meanwhile, Russia is exploring the possibility of moving additional troops to Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan as well as re-equipping those countries' armies to provide a "defensive zone in Central Asia against Afghan radical or narcotics incursions into the Russian heartland," according to Stoner.

The ideal Russian scenario in Afghanistan would have been for President Hamid Karzai to stay in power and a government of national reconciliation formed with moderate Taliban, she said. That scenario, however, has failed, and Russia will have to cope with an Afghanistan without Karzai.

Choices and a crossroads

Stoner believes Russia is faced with three choices. One is to return to its 1990s policy and support an updated version of the Northern Alliance as a way to create a northern buffer zone that protects its Central Asian allies from any incursions from Afghanistan.

The second is to cooperate with the new Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, and perhaps a moderate Taliban, in governing Afghanistan.

"The latter strategy could have the advantage of reducing narcotics trafficking, but it risks allowing Afghanistan to again become a haven for radical Islamic terrorists," said Stoner.

Russia clearly does not want another front to open in its war on radical Islam – the Chechen conflict has already produced enough grief for the Russian population and its leadership, she noted.

A third option for the Russians, according to Stoner, would be to continue some degree of cooperation with Western forces in creating a protective zone around Central Asia. The problem for the Russians is that this might bring about a "counterbalancing strategy on the part of China, which would not fit with Russia's strategy."

Besides, it's a long shot, she added, as Russia's renewed conflict with the West over Ukraine has deeply damaged its ability to  cooperate with Western powers in and around Afghanistan.

"There are few reliable indications of which path Russia is likely to choose," wrote Stoner. "One can discern elements of each scenario in Russian statements and actions in Afghanistan."

She explained that Russian leaders want to reassert their country's prominence on the global stage.

"In many ways, Russia is resurgent internationally. It has emerged from the ashes of the Soviet Union not as the superpower it was, but as a formidable regional power that cannot be discounted," said Stoner.

Under Vladimir Putin, Russia seeks to command the respect of the international community, though it can no longer rely on brute military force. Rather, it must today depend on adroit diplomatic or strategic moves to "act as facilitator or spoiler in many parts of the world," she wrote.

This Russian resurgence, she said, has played a role in its policy choices in Afghanistan since 2001. "It wants influence, but not ownership, in Central Asia, and ultimately in Afghanistan," she wrote.

As a result, Russia will act on the margins of the Afghanistan issue, leveraging its power to protect its own security interests in Central Asia.

"Russia has much to lose and little to gain by doing much more. For this reason, Russian policymakers are in the awkward position of not having wanted the Americans to come to Central Asia, but now, not wanting them to leave," she wrote.

Clifton B. Parker is a writer for the Stanford News Service.

Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, imprisoned since February, is the focus of a pledge signed by 40 scholars and public figures lamenting his mistreatment and urging his immediate release.

The “Global Call for the Release of Anwar Ibrahim” condemns Anwar’s persecution by the Malaysian authorities and their ongoing repression of freedom of speech and assembly.

Anwar is serving a five-year prison sentence on a sodomy charge that virtually all observers believe was politically motivated. The pledge, released by Anwar’s family on Monday, marks his 68^th birthday and almost a half-year spent in jail.

Stanford professor Donald Emmerson, who has known Anwar since the 1980s, welcomed the circulation of the pledge. “Even if the Malaysian government ignores the petition,” Emmerson said, “it is important for the international community to show that Anwar is not alone.”

Anwar’s ordeal dates back to 1998 when, as deputy prime minister, he had a falling out with then-prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, who drove him from office for apparently political reasons.

Malaysia’s current prime minister, Najib Razak, has continued this record of political persecution despite protests from around the world. Amnesty International has designated Anwar “a prisoner of conscience.”

Emmerson, who leads the Southeast Asia Program, joined Anwar on a panel in Nov. 2014 entitled “Islam and Democracy: Malaysia in Comparative Perspective,” hosted at Stanford by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL).

Following that event, Anwar traveled back to Malaysia despite signs pointing toward his possible arrest.

“Anwar’s courage in the face of adversity is inspiring,” Emmerson said. “He could have chosen not to return from Stanford to Malaysia, thereby avoiding the risk of imprisonment. He could have gone into exile. Or asked for asylum outside Malaysia. Instead, he went home. How many of us, in his shoes, would have done the same?”

The pledge is attached below. Remarks and video from the CDDRL event with Anwar, Emmerson and Stanford’s Larry Diamond and Francis Fukuyama can be accessed here.

The deal has sparked a vigorous debate in Iran as well as in the United States. In a piece published in The Atlantic, FSI Director Michael McFaul and Abbas Milani – Stanford's director of Iranian Studies and an FSI affiliate – describe how the agreement has split Iranians into camps that could shape the country's future.

Two key challenges facing Northeast Asia are how to tame the power of nationalism and create shared memories of history, Stanford professor Gi-Wook Shin wrote in The Diplomat. 

Shin, director of the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), urged action on the 70^th anniversary of the end of World War II. Northeast Asians should use the commemoration as an “opportune occasion to reflect on their unfortunate past to learn lessons,” only then can the region become more peaceful and prosperous.

Shin and Daniel Sneider, Shorenstein APARC’s associate director for research, lead the Divided Memories and Reconciliation research project which examines memories of the wartime experience in Northeast Asia and what steps can be taken to reconcile disputes over history.

One of their latest outcomes is the book Confronting Memories of World War II: European and Asian Legacies (April 2015), edited with University of Washington professor Daniel Chirot, that studies how wartime narratives are interpreted, memorialized and used in Europe and Asia.

The full article in The Diplomat can be accessed by clicking here.