Who Sank The Cheonan?
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If you get your news from a local paper, there's an important story you might not have heard about.
On March 26 the ROKS Cheonan, a 1,200-ton South Korean naval vessel, sank to the bottom of the Yellow Sea. Survivors recount a sudden, deafening explosion, a shockwave, and moments of terror as the ship broke in two and descended precipitously into the frigid waters. The dead and the missing, 46 in all, accompanied the ship to the sea floor. That is where the broken hull remains, just off Baengnyeong Island, miles from the disputed maritime border that separates North and South Korea.
In the last decade alone, these contested waters have been the site of three belligerent encounters between the North and South Korean navies. Recently, North Korea has stepped up threats against South Korean vessels acting in the region, designating parts of the border region "peacetime firing zones," and firing dozens of shells into South Korean territorial waters in January and February.
There are some indications that North Korea might have been involved in the sinking of ROKS Cheonan. At the time of the sinking, seismic sensors registered an event that measured 1.5 on the Richter scale - the equivalent of the detonation of a torpedo. Sailors' testimonies corroborate this scenario. Crewmen reported hearing an explosion that originated outside the ship. They didn't smell gunpowder, indicating that the explosion wasn't caused by ordinance held onboard.
But evidence also exists to support other conclusions.
Perhaps the most compelling alternate scenario involves the detonation of an unexploded mine from the Korean War. A mine explosion fits neatly with the sailor's testimony and with the seismic data. It also accounts for the fact that the ROKS Cheonan didn't detect any submarines operating in the area prior to the explosion.
A less compelling alternate scenario involves the ship running aground and disintegrating. According to this scenario, welds in the ship's hull, weakened by age, gave way, causing the ship to break cleanly in half. Fragments of the wreckage recovered from the site appear to bear out this hypothesis.
Most of the ship remains submerged, frustrating efforts to draw a definitive conclusion about the cause of the disaster. Absent this evidence, we must rely upon defense department statements about the good condition of the ship and its ability to safely navigate in the area.
At present, the preponderance of evidence points to North Korean involvement - either accidental (i.e. due to legacy ordinance from the Korean War) or intentional (i.e. due to a torpedo attack).
For reasons that are easy to explicate, the North Koreans have said nothing about the incident. The top U.S. commander in the region cast doubt on North Korean involvement, and the South Korean president has urgedpatience, pending the outcome of a thorough forensic investigation.
The U.S. and North Korea have been disciplined about maintaining the consistency of their message. The North Koreans have been careful not to mention the Cheonan as they continue their daily barrage of vitriol against the U.S. and the R.O.K. The U.S. has also maintained the message unity. The highest ranking member of the U.S. military establishment to comment on the event, 4-star General Walter Sharp, stated that there was no clear link between North Korea and the sinking of the Cheonan. When asked about the event, State Department Spokesperson P.J. Crowleyechoed General Sharp's statement. President Obama offered only a perfunctory letter of condolence to the South Koreans. He made no allusion to the cause of the disaster.
The South Koreans have had more difficulty staying on message. There are those in the South Korean government that have a vested interest in blaming the North Koreans. Defense Minister Kim Tae-Young, for example, has been criticized for attempting to deflect blame away from the South Korean navy. Kim has endorsed the torpedo attack as the most likely scenario.
The Obama Administration has said very little about the sinking of the ROKS Cheonan. So has the U.S. media. In the days and weeks following the incident, English language reporting and editorializing about the Cheonan was dwarfed by coverage of other local and international events.
The media's disinterest in the Cheonan is incongruous with the intensity of U.S. involvement in the inter-Korean dispute.The U.S. has 28,500 soldiers stationed in South Korea and a mutual defense agreement with the R.O.K. Moreover, the Obama Administration has just placed nuclear non-proliferation at the top of its agenda, and it has identified North Korea as one of the targets of its policy. The U.S. strategy in the region centers on a resumption of the six-party talks on North Korean nuclear disarmament. If the sinking of the Cheonan is attributed to North Korea, then military tension with the nuclear-armed North is likely to increase. Would the U.S. be able to stand idly by if South Korea is attacked? Could the U.S. prevent its regional strategy from unraveling?
This story could get very big, very quickly.
Joshua Saidoff is a Masters Student in Public Diplomacy at USC's Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism. He holds a Masters Degree in Government from the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center in Israel and a Bachelors in Political Science from Stanford. This op-ed is part of a parternership between Neon Tommy and the Association of Public Diplomacy Scholars.
http://blogs.uscannenberg.org/neontommy/2010/04/who-sank-the-cheonan.html
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