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19 Fordham Int'l L.J. 25 (1995-1996)
The Collapse of Communism and the Future of the Korean Peninsula

handle is hein.journals/frdint19 and id is 47 raw text is: THE COLLAPSE OF COMMUNISM AND THE FUTURE OF THE KOREAN PENINSULA Stephenj Solarz* If there is any law of international relations it must surely be that the only thing that is truly predictable is the unpredictable. For most of the last half-century, the Cold War and the existence of totalitarian communist regimes seemed to be an immutable political reality. So, too, did the division of Germany, which ap- peared to be the inescapable consequence of the division of Eu- rope into two hostile and ideologically incompatible camps. Few anticipated the possibility that the whole edifice of Eu- ropean communism would come crashing down, with barely a shot being fired and that, without exception, all of the Socialist regimes of Central and Eastern Europe would move toward the establishment of parliamentary democracies and market eco- nomics. Hardly anyone expected that Germany, which had been torn asunder as a consequence of war, would quickly be reunited in the context of peace. These developments have important implications for the fu- ture of the two Koreas. Initially rent asunder by the fortunes of the Second World War, the division of North and South Korea into two separate countries was solidified by the Korean War. North of the 38th parallel, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) became a totalitarian dictatorship based on a command economy. South of the 38th parallel, the Republic of Korea evolved into a liberal democracy with a market economy. For much of the last fifty years, these arrangements seemed to be almost as unchangeable and enduring as the Cold War it- self. Yet, the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and the subse- quent elimination of the rivalry between East and West, strongly suggest that the survival of the communist regime in the North can no longer be taken for granted. Similarly, just as the col- lapse of communism in East Germany was a necessary condition for the reunification of the two Germanys, the demise of com- * President of Solarz Associates, Washington, D.C.; Senior Counsellor with APCO Associates, Washington, D.C; Former Member, Foreign Affairs Committee, U.S. House of Representatives [D-NY], 1974-92.