South Korea: What did the army do?

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This article was published 07/12/2024 (536 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The South Korean president’s declaration of martial law on Tuesday came out of a clear blue sky.

President Yoon Suk Yeol’s television broadcast made no sense whatever because there was no need “to protect the country from North Korea’s Communist forces and to eliminate anti-state elements.” It “felt like the coup d’état in Myanmar,” as one Seoul resident put it.

There was no threat from “North Korea’s Communist forces” beyond the standing menace of its swollen armed forces, which has endured since an armistice ended the Korean War 70 years ago. As for the need to “eliminate anti-state elements,” Yoon may have been referring to the opposition parties, which were consistently thwarting his policy initiatives.

Even more bizarrely, Yoon cancelled martial law within a few hours of his late-night declaration, as if he was shocked by the almost unanimous public rejection of military rule. Could he have been so ignorant of the country he was living in? It would seem that the answer is yes.

South Korean politicians and ordinary citizens both mobilized with admirable speed. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were in the streets in hours, while politicians of all parties headed immediately to the National Assembly. Even Yoon’s own party condemned his actions.

By Wednesday morning, enough politicians had struggled through the police lines to constitute a quorum. (The police had tried to force their way into the building but had been repelled by parliamentary officials.) First the members of the National Assembly cancelled martial law by a unanimous vote, and then they voted to impeach the president.

It was an exemplary defence of democracy and South Koreans of all political colours should be congratulated for their actions — with the partial exception of the many senior members of the military and police forces who largely obeyed Yoon’s orders until he panicked and cancelled them.

You can sympathize with their dilemma. The president is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces and he might have information unavailable to the soldiers that justifies his orders. Even if he does not, disobeying the orders of a lawful superior officer is a fateful and irrevocable step. If you are wrong, you may be charged with treason and rebellion.

What the South Korean military and police seem to have done in practice was to obey all of the president’s orders up to but not including the use of lethal violence against the civilian population (which Yoon may not have ordered in any case).

Happily, the rapid reaction of the civilian defenders of democracy made further debate within the South Korean armed forces unnecessary, but what might happen if such a dilemma arose in a democracy with a deeply divided and fiercely partisan population? A democracy like the United States, for example.

Speculation on this topic was building even before Donald Trump’s return to the White House became certain, but seeing just such an event play out in a stable country like South Korea sharpens the focus considerably. Which way would the U.S. armed forces jump if Trump gave a similar order?

Like the Korean constitution, the U.S. constitution strictly subordinates the military to elected civilian authorities, but Trump will be just such an authority. He regularly generates fantasies just as far-fetched as Joon Suk Yeol’s justifications for declaring martial law nationwide, and the American military authorities would face the same dilemma in deciding whether to obey him.

One suspects the U.S. armed forces would initially respond rather like the South Korean army did, obeying the president’s orders in general but stopping short of using lethal force. However, it would be much harder to maintain that stance for more than a few days in the United States, where the population is heavily armed.

Trump’s rhetoric is often extreme but his actions are usually much less so. In a weird way, the fact he now effectively controls both Houses of Congress and the Supreme Court means a resort to radical measures like martial law becomes less likely, so lying awake worrying about it would be excessive. But the Koreans weren’t lying awake either.

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