The possibility of a Korean scenario in the ongoing Ukraine war now loomed large as pundits see a war that Russia and Ukraine cannot claim to win. Korean scenario refers to an armistice that brought hostilities to a halt in 1953, but there’s never been a treaty to end the conflict between North Korea and South Korea.
Whereas the Korean peninsula was divided into the democratic South and the communist North, the Ukraine country is seen having a West and an East Ukraine, as Russia redirects its firepower in the Donbas region where most of the populations speak Russian.
The Korean scenario is now on the horizon as the United States and the West continue to provide weapons to Ukraine, but refuse to ensnare its NATO allies to become part of the conflict following Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s warning on the engagement of other countries into the war when NATO started encroaching on Russia’s territory.
In an article in The Washington Post on June 2, American journalist David Ignatius said that US President Joe Biden understood that there was no alternative to a diplomatic solution of the Ukrainian conflict, and started a “secret bargaining” with Russia.
According to the expert, if Washington’s plans are implemented, Ukraine will be doomed to division by analogy with South and North Korea with the establishment of a “fragile” state border.
Pundits watching the Ukraine theater of war see the Korean formula into the Ukraine conflict as the United States hunker down for a long, limited war in Donbas. This view has been reinforced during the briefings in May and June by senior administration officials that signal a change in tone in the Washington debate about the war.
Biden summarized the administration’s approach in his article, “What America Will and Will Not Do in Ukraine,” on May 31 in the New York Times.
He said the United States’s goal was a negotiated peace. At the same time, the United States is considering the possibility of dividing Ukraine “in accordance with the Korean scenario.”
As the international expert explained, during the “Korean conflict,” as well as now in Ukraine, the United States expects to contain the fighting exclusively inside the country.
But in the hypothetical conclusion of a peace treaty between Ukraine and Russia, under the auspices of Washington, the Ukrainians could interpret this as a defeat.
The same situation occurred in July 1953, when, following the results of the ceasefire agreement signed with the mediation of the United States, American and South Korean servicemen were disappointed that the authorities forced them to “die for a draw.”
The end of the Korean War in 1953 seemed like a defeat to many people, but today South Korea is one of the most economically developed countries in the world.
This could be the perspective for a post-war Ukraine, Ignatius said.
However, the Western part of Ukraine has not a lot of chances of repeating the “economic miracle” of South Korea, given what experts say is the corruption of the Kyiv regime and the lack of access to the sea after the division of the country.
In addition, a part of the state so rich in minerals and where the industrial potential is concentrated will come under the control of the Russian Federation, as the populations of these regions wish.
And Western Ukraine will become a raw material appendage and a source of cheap labor for Poland.
Anyway, most likely, the main factor pushing the United States to organize negotiations is the food situation—no one expected that the world would be on the verge of starvation due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
For the United States, the disastrous consequences of the war had been the possibility of a US recession with the spike in energy prices and food prices that also bedeviled countries around the world.
This could be the reason for the need for a Korean solution to the ongoing Ukraine war.