[특집] IMF 시대의 통일논리와 안보논리

Contending Logic of National Unification and National Security Policies in IMF Era.

The national unification and national security policy of Kim Dae Jung Administration can he distinguished from previous administrations' in such two dimensions as environmental one and policy orientation. Decision-making environment reflects recent economic crisis while new policy orientation is characterized by the “Sunshine Policy”, or the “Engagement Policy”. The national security agenda has usually been placed on the foremost priority in the nation's contemporary history. Recent economic crisis, however, put the security interest aside, while DJ's engagement policy raises epistemological confusion on the basis of national security and unification policy. President Kim's engagement policy has a premise that attitude and behavior of North Korean leadership could he changed to ordinary one by continuous sunshining while national security policy of ROK is still based on the belief that North Korea is the main enemy that has a goal to 'communize' South Korea. The research goal of this paper is to examine the contradictory nature of present relationship between national security policy and engagement policy toward North Korea, aiming at a systemic understanding which is to be a logical basis for the prescription to solve the problems. The first area of discussion is related with controversial issues on the unification policy. The transitional situation leads us to confront with two dimensions of problem: epistemological one as well as a matter of practice. The most serious fact in epistemological dimension is the growing tendency that people begin to regard no longer the national security as being of the prime value. This problem is more or less caused by DJ's 'Sunshine Approach' and then it has made contention between 'state centered paradigm' and 'nationalistic paradigm'. At the same time, the process of national security policy decision making and execution has revealed itself far short of 'institutionalization'. The second area of discussion deals with logic of national security policy. There can be detected a number of controversies. Such questions as “national security for whom” and “which values” are among them. In addition, .on the question of “sufficiency of security”, “the source of threats”, and “the means for security”, controversial arguments make the present policy environment getting more complicated. In this context, some policy suggestions can be summarized as follows: 1) National security and unification policy should be systemized, from the decision making to execution, and all the process needs to be integrated as well Especially, national security policy requires the common belief on national goal and national ideology, then the concept of national interest and national objective needs to be shared by all the people. 2) New presidential leadership should be activated to maintain policy coherence while to control and hannonize effectively unification -security policy establishments. 3) As the hasty expectation for the South-North reconciliation and peaceful coexistence are not realistic, the top decision makers' prudence is needed in their evaluation process for the proper level of security arrangement. 4) There should be endeavors to secure sufficient deterrence capability for the short-run, while structuring solid basis for the long-run objective of peaceful coexistence. In this process, national consensus and supports are the prerequisite for attaining desirable goals.