[Peace & Sharing Newsletter] The System of War and Peace on the Korean Peninsula (May 2026)

The System of War and Peace on the Korean Peninsula

By Dr. Dong Jin Kim
Policy Research Fellow, Korean Sharing Movement
Kim Dae Jung Chair Professor of Peace Studies, Hanshin University

Right now, out there in the world, people are lying awake through the night, terrified by the sound of explosions. In the spring of 2026, the skies over the Middle East were once again filled with smoke. Since 2024, Gaza has experienced the tragedy of mass killing, leaving deep wounds across the region. Before those wounds even had a chance to heal, the United States and Israel launched airstrikes on Iran. Bombs fell at the very moment diplomatic negotiations were still underway, causing the deaths of thousands of civilians. At first glance, these events may seem distant from everyday life here in South Korea. Yet they are not nearly as far removed from us as we might prefer to believe.

Living Within the System of War

Iain Atack, a scholar of peace studies, claims that wars are not a series of isolated events, but part of a broad system. He explains that just as an understanding of sustainable peace requires a distinction between peace-building and peace-making, an understanding of the war system likewise demands a distinction between war-building and war-making. As long as investment in war-building through arms production, military training, and the expansion of military bases continues, the possibility of war-making always remains present. War is not a sudden incident; it is the product of investments and political will accumulated over decades within social, economic, and political structures.

According to the latest report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), global military expenditure reached 2.8 trillion USD in 2025, marking the eleventh consecutive year of record-breaking growth. Military spending now accounts for 2.5 per cent of global GDP, the highest level since 2009. The United States, China, and Russia alone account for 51 per cent of total global military expenditure, pouring a combined 1.48 trillion USD into military spending. Meanwhile, military spending across Europe surged by 14 percent in a single year, reaching its highest level since the end of the Cold War. Within this vast global system of war, it is imperative to reflect on the position that South Korea occupies within it.

South Korea ranked 9th among the world’s arms exporters from 2021 to 2025 (Source: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute)

In 2025, South Korea’s defense exports reached 15.4 billion USD, marking an increase of more than 60 percent from the previous year. Some projections suggest that the figure could exceed 27 billion USD in 2026. The combined order backlog of the country’s four major defense companies has already surpassed 95 billion USD. From tanks deployed across the plains of Poland to surface-to-air missile systems operating in the Middle East, Korean-made weapons are now embedded in battlefields around the world. While people continue to die in war zones, defense stocks rise on the Korean stock market. The media describes this as a “renaissance” of the defense industry, while financial analysts celebrate it as a leading engine of national growth.
These figures and slogans compel South Korea to confront what they imply. Even without directly engaging in armed conflict, the country is already deeply embedded within the global systems that sustain war. The moment the wars of others are framed as an “opportunity” for economic growth, South Korea ceases to stand outside violence as a distant observer and instead becomes a contributor to the very structures that reproduce war. Just as none of us is entirely free from responsibility for carbon emissions in the face of the climate crisis, we must also reflect on our own responsibility within the global war system. War must never become a means of profit.

The Question of Humanization: From Bethlehem to the Korean Peninsula

At least for a time, war may appear profitable because it succeeds in turning “others” into something less than human. Through the process of dehumanization, their deaths are reduced to numbers and statistics. In the pursuit of our own interests, their suffering gradually fades from view.

On Christmas Eve in 2023, Rev. Munther Isaac of the Lutheran Church in Bethlehem delivered a sermon before a nativity scene placed amid rubble, drawing global attention. Speaking about the mass killing of Palestinians, he remarked that he was, in some ways, even more concerned for Israelis themselves. By participating in and becoming complicit in mass violence, he argued, they were eroding their own humanity. “To those complicit in this massacre,” he asked, “will you ever be able to restore your humanity?” It was a question that resonated more deeply than the sound of bombs themselves.

This question is not directed only at Israel and Palestine. It is a question addressed to every society embedded within systems of war. There are people dying in conflicts tied, directly or indirectly, to South Korea’s economic interests. They appear in our export figures, yet remain absent from our moral field of vision. When a society repeatedly profits from the suffering of others, what does it begin to lose of itself? As defense stocks continue to rise, the price we pay may not simply be economic, but the erosion of our shared humanity.

How, then, can we resist systems of war while preserving our humanity? From the perspective of peace studies, the answer to this question may be approached on two levels: peace-making, which seeks to bring specific wars to an end, and peace-building, which seeks to replace systems of war with relationships and structures grounded in peace. While war-building is sustained through the production of weapons, the expansion of military bases, and rising military expenditure, peace-building is sustained through trust-building, humanitarian cooperation, and the expansion of dialogue and cooperation. While peace-making seeks to establish minimal peace through armistices and peace agreements, peace-building cultivates relationships between people by reminding us of our own humanity while recognizing the humanity of others. Just as dehumanization enables the persistence of war, humanization opens the possibility for lasting peace.

Since the Korean War, both North and South Korea have socialised successive generations to view one another as less than human. In South Korea, in particular, it was not long ago that students were taught in schools to portray North Koreans as “devils,” even though they are not. They were once our neighbours, and more than that, our family. Recovering this simple truth is essential both to building peace on the Korean Peninsula and to resisting the system of war. Recovering this simple truth is essential both to building peace on the Korean Peninsula and to resisting the system of war.

In this regard, the Korean Sharing Movement has demonstrated such efforts through its humanitarian approach to inter-Korean cooperation. Beyond emergency relief, the organization has carried out cooperation projects in agriculture and public health. At the same time, it has advanced policy advocacy for inter-Korean exchange and helped build networks of solidarity both domestically and internationally. Amid a structure that continues to identify North Korea as the enemy, these practices represent efforts to place people before ideology. Indeed, they constitute concrete forms of peace-building that challenge the logic of the war system and serve as peaceful resistance to the system itself.

From War-Building to Peace-Building

In March 2026, the South Korean government established the Fifth Basic Plan for the Development of Inter-Korean Relations, grounded in the principle of peaceful coexistence on the Korean Peninsula. It was, in many ways, a declaration that peace should be treated not merely as a political instrument, but as an end in itself. Yet amid the intensifying wars unfolding across the world, the reality is far more contradictory. Both North and South Korea continue to orient their national interests toward the economic benefits generated by the global war system, rather than toward a broader vision of peaceful coexistence that includes not only the Korean Peninsula but also the lives of people beyond it.

Korean Sharing Movement was founded in 1996, at a time when North Korea’s severe food crisis was becoming known to the world outside. Its founding brought together the six major religious traditions, along with leading civil society organizations. The purpose of its founding was clear: to move beyond hostility and confrontation between the two Koreas, and to realise reconciliation and coexistence through humanitarian cooperation and exchange. At its core, this was not a political calculation, but a genuine response to human suffering.

Founding assembly of the Korean Sharing Movement (Source: Korean Sharing Movement)

As Korean Sharing Movement marks its 30th anniversary this year, efforts to respond to human suffering can no longer remain confined to the Korean Peninsula. Indeed, it is time for this commitment to grow into a broader global movement that stands with people living through war and conflict around the world. It is evident that the wars in the Middle East and the tensions on the Korean Peninsula are deeply interconnected. In fact, the war system does not stop at borders. Solidarity with the children of Gaza is inseparable from the pursuit of peace on the Korean Peninsula. Responding to the suffering of civilians not only in the Middle East, but across conflict zones around the world, is closely connected to the future of peace and stability in Northeast Asia. Even those living amid wars in which South Korean-made weapons are involved are people to whom we bear a shared human responsibility. When civil societies across different conflict regions share their experiences, support one another, and build networks of human solidarity, they begin to dismantle the logic of the war system and lay the foundations for peace.

It may seem, if only for a moment, that wars generate profit. Yet the logic of dehumanization ultimately leads humanity toward its own destruction. In this context, the question posed by Rev. Munther Isaac must also be directed at us. In an age when defense stocks continue to rise and arms orders surpass 85 billion USD, recovering our humanity has become one of the defining moral challenges of our time.

Seventy-six years have passed since the outbreak of the Korean War. Yet the war has never truly ended. Even amid this unfinished war, civil society movements on the Korean Peninsula, including the Korean Sharing Movement, have continued to embody the values of care and sustain the practice of peace. Now, in the face of a global war system, we are confronted with a profound choice: whether to remain participants in that system, or to become those who resist it through the practice of peace. On the Korean Peninsula and across the world, the future of peace ultimately depends on whether we are still capable of recognizing one another as human beings, here and now.

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