Mark Almond: Will the Little Rocket Man now take the opportunity to cause chaos?

Nobody expected this. Not the Americans who see Seoul as a crucial ally of Asia, not the half-starved North Korea under the foot of its dictator, and certainly not the people of South Korea itself.

When President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law yesterday, many of the country’s 52 million residents must have feared that an international emergency had broken out – perhaps an invasion or nuclear testing by their neighbor.

But as soldiers barricaded the entrance to the parliament building and all democratic political activity was suspended, it became clear that this was a domestic crisis of seismic scale.

Whatever happens next will only add to the shock.

Yoon, whose party had already suffered major losses in this year’s parliamentary elections, has acted in a desperate bid to avoid being forced out of office. If he falls, there will be a power vacuum. But holding on does not seem a realistic option after a half-baked coup to keep themselves in power.

All scenarios are potentially catastrophic for the US, which has more than 24,000 troops stationed in the country.

Since the Korean War of the 1950s, this peninsula has been a crucial pillar for America in the East.

In Beijing, the Chinese Communist Party will decide how to respond. They are unlikely to make sudden movements.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law late Tuesday, but has since lifted the legislation after unrest

People gesture as they gather outside the National Assembly in Seoul on December 4, 2024, after South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declares martial law

But North Korea’s Kim Jong Un — infamously nicknamed “Little Rocket Man” by Donald Trump — is far less predictable. He will certainly try to take advantage of the situation by creating more unrest.

Cyberwarfare is a weapon of choice, but he may also try to intimidate his neighbors by firing a missile – a tactic he has used with Japan in the past. He could even order a border raid to demonstrate his military might.

While South Korea has the world’s lowest birth rate and an aging population, North Korea is a young nation. The country has no shortage of recruits for its large army and was able to send 10,000 troops to help Russia in Ukraine earlier this year.

If the North were to stage a full-scale invasion, the US would have no choice but to declare war. Yet that would put Washington in the impossible position of supporting Yoon, who is now acting as a tyrant.

His bitterest political enemies could not have foreseen this when he was elected Conservative leader in 2022 on an anti-corruption platform. South Korea has been dogged by financial cheating in the government for decades, and Yoon touted himself as a leading activist in the fight. against dirty things.

Instead, he has wallowed in the mud. His First Lady Kim Keon Hee has been accused of taking bribes. Opponents compare her to Marie Antoinette.

We don’t yet know if Yoon will leave soon, or if the National Assembly will demand his head after revoking the martial law decree. As I write this, the situation is uncertain.

What is certain is that this volatility in a major economy teetering on a nuclear stumbling block means that the South Korean crisis will have repercussions around the world.

Soldiers attempt to enter the National Assembly building in Seoul on December 4, 2024, after South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law

It comes as Kim Jong Un sent thousands of troops to Ukraine to aid Russian soldiers amid the ongoing conflict

The failure of the coup does not mean that South Korea will return to normal after a bout of midnight madness.

That this could happen shows that deep problems of corruption lurked behind the facade of K-Pop and Samsung Galaxies. A new crisis over who will take over in South Korea may be just beginning.

Mark Almond is director of the Crisis Research Institute in Oxford.