Cumings is the Gustavus F. and Ann M. Swift Distinguished Service Professor in History and chair of the history department at the University of Chicago. He is an expert in modern Korean history and international relations in East Asia. Cumings spoke about the suspension of war under the Korean Armistice for more than 60 years. He said the agreement has rendered relations between North and South Korea ambiguous—neither in a state of peace nor war.
“The Korean War is the best example in our current world of how easy it is to get into a war, and how terribly hard it is to get out,” Cumings said. “Who would have thought that 70 years later, the problem remains unresolved?”
Cumings said reunification prospects of the two Koreas were strong from 1998 to 2008, under South Korean presidents Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun who had “pretty clear ideas about how to achieve reunification.”
“It meant reconciliation between North and South over a very long time, 25 to 30 years, so Koreans could get to know each other and understand each other’s history,” he said.
However, policies by President George W. Bush and then South Korean president Lee Myung-bak “stonewalled” possibilities of a peaceful reunification, Cumings said.
“I don’t see any path towards reunification now short of war,” he said. “Somehow through minor incidents that ratchet up, you get a war on the peninsula, and it would be a horrible brutal war, but probably the U.S. and the South would win.”
Cumings attributed the deterioration of relations to the lack of dialogue between North Korea and South Korea and the U.S. Cumings referenced the sinking of South Korean navy ship Cheonan in 2010 and North Korea’s nuclear tests last spring to indicate the dissipation of the momentum for reunification that lasted until 2008.
“We have to live with the North Koreans, not lord over the North Koreans,” Cumings said. “When you go to meetings where there are South Koreans and North Koreans together, often the South Koreans are quite obnoxious and they're acting like, you know, they're wealthy, they've done very well, here's our poor cousins who don't know what they're doing.”
Junior Bryan Kim said he appreciated Cumings’ analysis of the Korean War and emphasis on the ongoing nature of the conflict.
“The Korean War still remains an unforgotten, painful memory to many Koreans, yet to the world, Korea is often simplified to Samsung, Gangnam Style, and the modernization,” he said.
Cumings has authored numerous publications, including The Origins of the Korean War, which won the John King Fairbank Book Award of the American Historical Association and the Quincy Wright Book Award of the International Studies Association.
Asian and Middle Eastern Studies professor Cheehyung Kim said Cumings is a “courageous scholar” and his research is “impeccable.” Kim lauded Cumings for criticizing American government and corporate actions.
“What makes him stand out is that he is not afraid of speaking out, no matter what the opposition is," Kim said. “Cumings demands that we constantly keep both our eyes open and be critical of all those in power, because power is almost always abused.”
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