In the twelve years since Don Oberdorfer finished updating his well-respected account of the events and personalities that shaped Korean history after the Korean War, much has happened on the divided peninsula, yet the situation remains frozen in many ways. The South is richer than ever, but is facing the same serious demographic problems that plague much of the industrialized world—low birthrates, wrenching changes in the traditional family structure, underutilization of its educated younger generations, and the need to develop social safety nets to deal with an aging population. All of these challenges have been compounded by the South’s ongoing confrontation with North Korea—a confrontation that, in some ways, has become more dangerous than at any time in the past thirty years.

North Korea is today no closer to achieving its economic goals than it has ever been and is falling further and further behind the rest of the countries in Northeast Asia. Internal pressures are growing from a population no longer as docile as it once was, nor as willing to accept the promises of a better tomorrow from a state that the people now realize cannot provide even for their basic needs. Meanwhile, development of nuclear weapons, a goal of North Korea’s for the past three decades, has not brought it security.

The one new element in the North is the advent of a young leader educated, for at least a few years, in the West. Kim Jong Un is an unknown quantity to the outside world, but in his first eighteen months in power he has demonstrated that he is prepared to lead the country in new directions. At times he is more confrontational than his father, Kim Jong Il, but he is no less capable of keeping his neighbors on edge.

Over the past decade, China has emerged as a player in Korea as it has not been for well over a hundred years. How far Beijing is willing to assert itself on the Korean peninsula is not yet clear, though everyone in Asia knows that they are watching an emerging China replace the influence of what appears to be, by contrast, a diminished United States.

When Don Oberdorfer asked if I would help revise and update
The Two Koreas
, it was a simple decision to make. After forty years in Washington, all of them focused on Asia (indeed, virtually all of them focused on Korea), it was an offer I could not refuse. I knew that to match Don’s
experience was impossible, though his name ended up opening many doors for me as I conducted interviews. Matching the rhythm and richness of the previous editions’ prose was a goal I set early, because the impact of the story of
The Two Koreas
is not just in the content but in the telling. Throughout the first sixteen chapters, Don frequently referred to his own experience and observations of people and events, using the first-person pronoun. For the sake of consistency, we decided to continue that practice in the three new chapters, that is, the first-person pronoun refers to Don. Again, for the sake of consistency, in the new chapters my own involvement in events is handled in the third person.

Like Don, I am not a historian, though I lived some of the history in this book and saw firsthand at least some of what unfolded in the years covered in the three new chapters. Many people helped me learn what I did not know, and I hope I have done a decent job of telling the story as they saw it. Part of the task before me was updating the earlier sixteen chapters, if there was anything left to add. I knew if anyone would have a grasp of new information on old events, it would be the scholars at the Wilson Center’s Cold War History Project. They did, and their work deserves great respect.

Johns Hopkins University and the Pacific Century Institute supported this project; it would not have been possible without them. I am especially grateful to Spencer Kim for his backing and encouragement in this endeavor. Stanford University’s Center of International Security and Cooperation has given me an academic home for many years, and my ongoing contact with CISAC’s experts and scholars has been invaluable.

My greatest disappointment is that the North Koreans, despite repeated requests, would not take the opportunity Don and I offered them to contribute their perspective to this new edition. Someday, officials in Pyongyang will understand that a history of their country written without them does them no favors. Apparently, that day has not yet come.

It soon becomes obvious to anyone who deals with Korea for more than a few years that it is a drama on many levels, with great historical forces grinding at a people who for more than a hundred years have not been left in the peace and quiet that their country, with its rows of hills shrouded in morning mist, might offer in abundance. Perhaps the next edition of this book can end on a happy note. But as Don observed in his preface to the second edition, “The outcome of the drama on the Korean peninsula is still beyond our reach.” For this third edition, the story remains unfinished, and, sadly, the dangers remain profound.

—
Robert Carlin, Washington, May 2013

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

We are now traveling the length of free Korea by troop train, from the southern tip, the port of Pusan, to almost the farthest point therefrom, Inchon on the northwest coast. . . . Our first impressions, at Pusan, were miserable and pathetic. The dirtiest children I have ever seen anywhere evaded MPs around the train to beg from GIs. One boy crawled around the train on his only leg; what had been his left one was off at the thigh. When our train pulled out, several boys threw rocks at the train. . . . Out of Pusan, however, the picture is better. The Korean countryside is quite mountainous, with villages in the little stretches of valleys between the rugged, unadorned crags. The people in the villages till the soil and wash in the muddy water holes, and the children do God-knows-what. They line the sides of the railroad and shout, “hello, hello” at the troop train, hoping to be thrown cigarettes or candy or something of value
.

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