Asean can and must do more to prevent second Korean war

Yet given the gravity of the situation, Asean should have been more proactive by rejecting any military solution and insisting on a negotiated diplomatic settlement.
For that to happen would take preliminary gestures from both sides: North Korea should suspend all nuclear and missile tests while the US and South Korea should shelve their joint military exercises.
Though this idea was first suggested by the Chinese Foreign Minister, Asean should have tabled it as its own proposal. Asean should have gone further and offered to host talks among all six parties in the conflict – North and South Korea, China, the US, Japan and Russia. A strong push by Asean for the immediate recommencement of the Six Party Talks would have carried a lot of weight.
Unlike the 2003-2008 Six Party Talks which made little progress, talks this time should go beyond North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme and address the underlying causes of friction.
North Korea began its nuclear and missile tests in response to the massive US-South Korean military exercises. This is why issues of US-South Korea military ties, the US military relationship with Japan, and the stationing of thousands of American military personnel in South Korea and Japan cannot be divorced from North Korea’s military posturing.
While the North Korean leadership’s belligerence has undoubtedly contributed to the current conflict, the drive by the US to maintain hegemony over Northeast Asia has also exacerbated the situation. This hegemonic agenda – especially if it is viewed against the backdrop of the Korean War (1950-1953) – is directed against China and Russia, which are neighbours and allies of sorts with North Korea.
Although the Cold War ended in 1989, the US has continued to see North Korea from a power perspective shaped to a great extent by the position of South Korea and Japan on the one hand, and the presence of China and Russia on the other.
As long as these fundamental issues are ignored in order to focus exclusively on how to tame a recalcitrant state, then instability in Northeast Asia and the danger it poses to regional and global peace will persist. 
The alternative to peace talks is war – a devastating war whose impact will spill from Northeast Asia to the rest of the world.
According to respected war reporter Eric Margolis, a nuclear conflict “would expose a third of the world’s economy to nuclear contamination, not to mention spreading nuclear winter around the globe”. Even a conventional US attack on North Korea “will prove a daunting challenge. US analysts have in the past estimated a US invasion of North Korea would cost some 250,000 American casualties and at least US$10 billion, though I believe such a war would cost four times that much today.”
Margolis warns that, “North Korea is unlikely to be a pushover in a war. Even after US and South Korean forces occupy Pyongyang, the North has prepared for a long guerrilla war in the mountains that could last for decades. They have been practising for 30 years. Chaos in North Korea will invite Chinese military intervention. Will Russia sit by quietly while the US blows apart North Korea? Does anyone in the White House know that North Korea borders Russia and is less than 200km from the key Russian port of Vladivostok?”
The urgency of convening talks cannot be overstated. It is not too late for Asean leaders and people to speak with one voice and plead with the six states to recommence the Six Party Talks immediately.
Chandra Muzaffar
President, International Movement for a Just World.
The Star/ANN