So Korea will head back to Afghanistan this summer. I spoke on this today in my radio slot on Busan’s English language station. The transcript is below.

The obvious question is why. The provincial reconstruction team Korea will send is pretty small. They won’t be able to do much. They won’t be in a particularly dangerous part of the country. And the Korean public is awfully skeptical.

So why go? The short answer is because the US wants Korea to go; they are part of the ally round-up of the Obama administration to reach McChrystal’s 40,000 soldier figure for counterinsurgency in Afghanistan. Korea’s geopolitics are awful. It is surrounded by 3 larger powers with whom it has terrible relations, plus bizarro North Korea. So SK is terribly dependent on the US to help it maintain its autonomy in such a bad neighborhood. And the US has repeatedly (ab)used this asymmetric dependence to push Korea into things it doesn’t want to do.

It’s also a nice way for Korea to strut its stuff as an emerging global player – something Koreans desperately want to be.

But I don’t think Koreans are ready for the blowback that comes with participation in the GWoT. As Greenwald and Walt have both noted repeatedly, it is ridiculous to assume that if you kill Muslims in the ‘war,’ they won’t hit back – e.g., in the Christmas bombing attempt. Koreans have already been targeted in the GWoT. The more Korea gets sucked into this thing, the more they will be targeted.

Further, Korea is an increasingly Christian society. Islamic radicals have traditionally avoided Asian religions. They worry about ‘backward’ monotheisms (Christians and Jews haven’t ‘updated’ to Mohammed, the last and definitive prophet of the God of Abraham) and polytheistic irreligion (i.e., Hinduism). But the more metaphysical/non-theistic faiths of East Asia don’t really activate them. Look at Malaysia, whose large minority of Buddhists have never been targeted. But as Korea christianizes (due to heavy proselytization here), expect the al Qaeda types to start eyeing it, especially if its soldiers use force in Muslim countries.

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TRANSCRIPT

BUSAN E-FM

MONDAY, 8 AM

January 11, 2010

Petra:

So in the last few weeks, the government has agreed to redeploy Korean forces to Afghanistan, but not very many. So why is this important?

REK:

You’re right that the numbers are small – less than 500 people – in what we call a provincial reconstruction team. But it is important for Korea for at least three big reasons – beyond the obvious costs and risks to personnel.

Petra:

And those reasons are what?

REK:

First, Korea has almost no record of overseas force deployments. The Republic did send a few peacekeepers to East Timor and Iraq, but these were very controversial. Under the left-leaning Kim and Roh administrations, the Korean government disagreed badly with the US over Middle East policy, and one way to show that displeasure was avoid overseas deployments

Petra:

So why is Korea going to Afghanistan now then?

REK:

The conservative Lee administration wants a more mature, or ‘global,’ profile for Korea. President Lee wants Koreans to become accustomed to thinking of themselves globally, and peacekeeping is a part of that role. If Korea is to cut a larger role on the global stage – a deeply held Korean political goal – then it must also carry more of the burden. For the same reason, Korea is expanding its foreign aid programming.

Petra:

Ok. So what are the other reasons Korea is going?

REK:

Sure. The second big reason is because the US is asking Korea to go. Before President Lee, the Korean government was distancing itself from the US. President Roh particularly liked to use his flirtation with China to tweak the Bush administration. President Bush was deeply unpopular in Korea, as was the Iraq war.

Petra:

So President Lee is trying to mend fences with America by sending us to Afghanistan?

REK:

Basically, yes. President Lee is staunchly pro-American in a way his predecessors were not. Unlike South Korea’s drift toward China earlier in the decade, President Lee is strongly committed to returning the US alliance to centrality in Korean foreign policy…

Petra:

And going to Afghanistan is way to show that.

REK:

Exactly.

Petra:

You said there was a third big issue stemming from this deployment.

REK:

Yes, as Korea’s global profile and global intervention accelerate, it will eventually become a target of those forces that resent globalization, global governance, and the United States.

Petra:

I don’t understand.

REK:

Sorry. If Korea joins world politics more explicitly, if it moves beyond simply East Asia – its regional home for decades – then eventually it will encounter the turbulence of big international relations issues, such as terrorism or piracy.

Petra:

That’s right. I have heard before about Korean aid workers killed in the Middle East.

REK:

And Koreans have been increasingly pulled into the problem of Somali piracy.

Petra:

So what does this mean for Korean foreign policy?

REK:

Well, on the one hand, it means that Korean is increasingly becoming a mature global player. Its foreign policy is no longer dominated solely by North Korea. This is a deep desire of the current Lee administration – to pull South Korea out of the local ‘ghetto’ of peninsular politics, where everything in Korean foreign policy is dominated by erratic Pyongyang. President Lee and most Koreans want Korea accepted globally – as a wealthy, prestigious, functional, responsible democracy.

Petra:

And going to Afghanistan shows that. I get it. But you sound like you see a downside.

REK:

Yes, there is. The more Korea gets pulled into the US-led war on terror, the more likely Koreans are to become targets too.

Petra:

That’s unfortunate. Why?

REK:

Well, for two reasons. One, Korea is a US ally. And al Qaeda and similar groups target not only Americans but close allies, like Great Britain, too. Second, Korea has a growing Christian population.

Petra:

Why is that important?

REK:

Because for al Qaeda, the war on terror is really a clash of civilizations or a religious conflict. Islamic radicals are, in their mind, defending the faith against aggressive, imperialistic Christians, Jews, and to a lesser extent Hindus.

Petra:

But Korea’s heritage is mostly Buddhist and Confucian.

REK:

That’s right. Which is why East Asia has generally been spared the effects of 9/11. Islamic radicalism is just not as worried about Asian religions. But as Korea’s Christian population expands, and as its role in the war on terror expands also, al Qaeda attacks on Koreans are more likely.

Petra:

Those are the costs of global profile for Korea?

REK:

Yup.

Petra:

Do you think it’s worth it?

REK:

I don’t know, and I worry sometimes that Koreans don’t know either. Koreans are so concerned to achieve global status, that they haven’t really thought too much about its costs. You know, it’s not so bad to be the Austrias or the Canadas of the world.

Petra:

Is that what Korea is in East Aisa?

REK:

Kind of. And it could be if you wanted it that way. I even wrote a paper once saying that Korea might consider trying to be like Finland, instead of Japan – small, rich, and neutral – with lots of good skiing.

Petra:

But that’s not really what Koreans want right now, is it? So off we go to Afghanistan.

REK:

Basically, yes. You have decided to be an American ally, and so you get pulled into stuff like this.