한반도 종전 평화

There is an old joke that resurfaces every now and then, opening with a seemingly impossible question: "How do you put an elephant in a refrigerator in three steps?"

The question leaves the listener stumped. But before any answer can be ventured, the solution is announced, plain and simple.

"Step one: open the refrigerator door." "Step two: put the elephant inside." "Step three: close the door."

"That's it."

Behind this lighthearted joke lies a sobering lesson. Reducing a formidable challenge to a neat sequence of steps creates the comforting illusion that the problem is already solved. After all, if a solution takes only three steps, even forcing an elephant into a refrigerator sounds plausible. However, as anyone can tell, solving a problem is rarely that simple. Fitting an elephant into a refrigerator would demand immense effort and vast resources, whether to build a refrigerator of gargantuan proportions or, better yet, to create conditions that make it unnecessary in the first place. Nothing is accomplished by merely reciting the steps without putting in the backbreaking effort. When a challenge is broken down into an endless series of incremental steps, even Achilles, as the ancient Greek philosopher Zeno famously argued, will never catch the tortoise.

How can peace be built on the Korean Peninsula? For South Korea, this question carries profound urgency, particularly after the ‘Candlelight Revolution’ thwarted the Yoon Suk Yeol administration’s attempt to impose martial law and averted the immediate threat of war. Looking back, tensions on the Korean Peninsula reached a particularly dangerous level under the Yoon administration, raising serious concerns about the risk of military confrontation. In 2018, the Moon Jae-in administration reached the September 19 Military Agreement with North Korea, under which the two sides agreed to halt all hostile military activities. In June 2024, however, the Yoon administration suspended the pact entirely, resuming loudspeaker broadcasts and Marine Corps live-fire exercises in waters near the border. Between October and November, the administration went so far as to launch drone incursions into Pyongyang, apparently seeking to provoke a response from North Korea. The peaceful removal of a government willing to risk war to create a pretext for declaring martial law has made the task of building peace on the Korean Peninsula more urgent than ever.

Recognizing these challenges, the Lee Jae-myung administration, dubbed ‘Candlelight Government 2.0,’ declared its commitment to the "Policy for Peaceful Coexistence on the Korean Peninsula." It pursues three core goals: (1) institutionalizing inter-Korean peaceful coexistence, (2) building a foundation for shared growth on the peninsula, and (3) achieving a Korean Peninsula free of war and nuclear weapons. The execution strategy behind this vision is the "E.N.D. Initiative," which President Lee unveiled during his address to the United Nations General Assembly in September 2025. This initiative adopts a comprehensive framework encompassing ‘Exchange,’ ‘Normalization’ (of relations), and ‘Denuclearization.’ Recognizing that denuclearization, while a vital priority, is difficult to achieve in the short term, the administration offered a pragmatic roadmap: freezing the advancement of North Korea's nuclear and missile capabilities, followed by reduction and eventual dismantlement to realize this nuclear-free vision over the long term.

Furthermore, the Lee administration took immediate action by halting anti-North Korean leaflet incursions and loudspeaker broadcasts. Subsequently, in his Liberation Day address a year ago, President Lee announced that his administration would pursue measures to ease military tensions, including the unilateral phased restoration of the September 19 Military Agreement. This raised expectations for subsequent policies, such as suspending military drills along the Military Demarcation Line, transforming the Demilitarized Zone into a peace zone, and turning the area around the Northern Limit Line in the West Sea into a maritime peace zone. Unlike under the previous administration, there was ample reason for optimism that genuine progress toward peace on the Korean Peninsula would finally be made.

Yet that was as far as it went. The E.N.D. Initiative failed to take even the very first step of its initial stage—Exchange. Far from any government-level engagement, even civil society exchanges or simple face-to-face meetings remained completely out of reach. It is true that Pyongyang’s Naegohyang Women’s Football Club visited South Korea in May to compete in the AFC Women’s Champions League. Yet the episode served only to underscore the practical hurdles the government must overcome to make inter-Korean exchanges truly possible. To facilitate the team’s entry, the South Korean Ministry of Justice resorted to an administrative workaround, issuing visitor permits in lieu of formal visas for athletes holding North Korean passports. But how much inter-Korean exchange can truly be sustained through such administrative workarounds? Could a South Korean citizen visit North Korea carrying only a visitor permit issued by the Ministry of Unification, and without obtaining an official visa from the relevant government office in Pyongyang?

A year ago, President Lee set forth three core principles for peaceful coexistence, placing respect for the North Korean regime at the forefront. In his recent Liberation Day address on August 15, he built on these principles, presenting a blueprint for inclusive peaceful coexistence rooted first and foremost in mutual respect. Yet the Lee administration remains reluctant even to refer to North Korea by its own Korean name, “Joseon” (the designation North Korea uses to refer to itself, as opposed to South Korea’s conventional “Bukhan”). If the other side cannot even be addressed by its own name, what does it actually mean to claim that it is being respected? Can it really make sense to seek a visa for North Korea while remaining unwilling even to use its official name? Little wonder, then, that inter-Korean exchange has failed to take even its first step. It is for this reason that the Lee administration’s policy of peaceful coexistence rings hollow. The government, of course, insists that its E.N.D. Initiative is not a step-by-step approach. But if the first step toward exchange cannot even be taken, how can the far more difficult tasks of normalizing inter-Korean relations and achieving denuclearization possibly be accomplished?

Against this backdrop, President Lee introduced yet another stepped framework during his Liberation Day address this August, outlining a three-stage blueprint to operationalize the principles for peaceful coexistence. The three key elements, which seem persuasive at first glance, are as follows: first, inclusive peaceful coexistence rooted in mutual respect; second, stable peaceful coexistence that eliminates the need for conflict; and third, responsible peaceful coexistence that contributes to global stability. Yet this scheme reproduces the hollow nature of procedural paradigms. While declaring that ending confrontation and reducing hostility must be the first steps toward inclusive peaceful coexistence, the administration has failed to follow through with corresponding measures. In fact, it continues to conduct joint military drills based on an adversarial posture toward North Korea, while allocating a record 73 trillion won (approximately $53 billion) for next year’s defense budget. In particular, spending on defense capability enhancement is slated for its largest-ever increase, which the government portrays as an investment in strengthening the country’s self-defense capabilities. Yet the result is a precarious coexistence in which preparations for a potential conflict with North Korea continue to intensify. How, then, can the government possibly move on to the second or third stage? While persuasive as a conceptual model, this three-step blueprint suffers from a critical defect: either it lacks the political practice required to give it substance, or its concrete actions run directly counter to its stated design.

Within this context, when the president's proposal to initiate discussions among the involved parties to formally end the Korean War appeared somewhat out of place, its intrinsic justification notwithstanding. Despite casting himself in the role of a "pacemaker," he has shown little inclination to run ahead and lead Washington down the path toward peace. Nor was there any sign of practical action or diplomatic persuasion to bring the primary parties to the war, namely North Korea, China, and Russia, to the peace regime negotiating table. Under these circumstances, declaring an intent to negotiate an end to the war as a vehicle to halt Pyongyang's nuclear program remains little more than another illusory ‘elephant in the refrigerator’ framework: “First, begin peace talks. Second, construct a peace regime. Third, freeze North Korea's advancing nuclear capabilities. The end!”

As luck would have it, and for his own reasons, Trump tossed Lee’s blueprint a lifeline. On August 17, Trump revealed on Truth Social that he had directed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to drastically reduce the scale of joint US–ROK military exercises. As a result, the Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) drills that launched that very day were cut short, triggering widespread speculation about a potential US–North Korea summit. Given Trump's emphasis on his personal rapport with Chairman Kim Jong-un, observers suspect this decision serves as a strategic card to break the stalemate and restart dialogue. This optimism is further reinforced by memories of 2018, when halting joint exercises paved the way for historic summit diplomacy.

For Trump, his "good relationship" with Chairman Kim Jong-un remains a prized political asset. Standing outside the mainstream of U.S. foreign policy, Trump occupies a unique position—one that views the Korean War and the U.S.–ROK alliance with detached realism. The strategists surrounding him are likewise weighing the geopolitical risks and rewards of ending the Korean War and normalizing relations with North Korea through a lens of strict realism. Thus, the downsizing of the UFS exercises may be more than a passing episode; the door to a geopolitical shift stands at least slightly ajar. If the Lee administration were to take actual steps for peaceful coexistence, the likelihood of such a transformation only grows stronger.

Translating such potential into reality, however, demands relentless effort, an area where the Lee administration’s track record remains procedurally deficient. Consider a counterfactual scenario: what if Seoul had taken the initiative by proposing the suspension of joint ROK–U.S. military exercises to Trump? Had South Korea led from the front as a true pacemaker, could it not have leveraged that momentum to open direct talks with North Korea? Also, if the Lee administration had framed the exercise suspension and a potential U.S.–DPRK summit as personal victories for Trump, that would have enhanced Seoul’s bargaining power with Washington. It could have redirected Trump’s focus away from demanding ROK military deployment to the Strait of Hormuz and toward historic diplomacy on the Korean Peninsula. Moreover, Seoul could have exercised genuine leverage across critical bilateral fronts, ranging from wartime operational control (OPCON) transfer to ongoing U.S. investment negotiations, while simultaneously securing an advantageous position in its relations with Pyongyang.

In that regard, the primary step toward peaceful coexistence on the Korean Peninsula must take the form of proactive, unilateral peace measures initiated by South Korea. President Lee’s promise to restore the September 19 Military Agreement requires tangible actions that demonstrate genuine respect for North Korea. That commitment entails halting unnecessary confrontation and ceasing competitive force enhancement. Rather than indulging in idealistic posturing by declaring a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula as one of its three overarching goals, the administration ought to forge a path toward denuclearization without obsessively invoking the term itself. Above all, in step with grand principles and multi-step schemes, the Lee government must execute concrete, realistic peace policies to build both trust and momentum. Only through such concrete and pragmatic practice will peaceful coexistence on the Korean Peninsula transit from rhetoric into reality.

Wars continue to consume Ukraine and Iran, propelling the world into an era where humanity beats plowshares into weapons, and drafts microchips into the service of suicide drones and killer robots. With one step toward peaceful coexistence, and then another, the two Koreas can turn the tide of competitive rearmament into an epoch of durable peace, fulfilling its promise as Tagore’s "Lamp of the East."

(Sept 10. 2026)