Speech at the Korea Global Forum for Peace, “Implications of the war in Ukraine for the Korean Peninsula”

This publication is the text of a speech pronounced by Dr. BONDAZ at the Korea Global Forum for Peace organized in Seoul by the Ministry of Unification of the Republic of Korea. Participants included CHOI Yonghwan, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for National Security Strategy; KIM Jaechun, Professor at the Sogang University; KIM Hyun-wook, Director-General and Professor at the Korean National Diplomatic Academy; and Eric BALLBACH, Korea Fellow at the SWP, Berlin.

Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the most frequently drawn parallel is with the risk of China invading Taiwan. The impacts for the Korean peninsula are generally ignored even though they are numerous, direct and indirect.

The war in Ukraine is a source of learning. In these introductory remarks, I will cover four dimensions: the renewed prominence of nuclear-related issues; the overall negative impacts of the war for South Korea; the overall positive impacts for North Korea; the aggravation of the crisis in the peninsula.