State. That did not happen. The division became permanent. There is no doubt whose idea it was originally. The reason this matters is the koreans see themselves as one people, one nation and one race. And would like to be reunified, especially the elder generation of koreans who still have family in the north, some of whom have not spoken in decades. This matters because in many ways koreans hold the United States responsible for that decision. There is a latent stream of antiamericanism running through Korean Society that does not always manifest itself, but could manifest itself in a strong way under the right circumstances. The perplexing thing about them seeing themselves as one nations they have two different governing systems. How would that rectify itself in their minds . If you look at the situation and the deprivation people have in north korea versus the south, how does that fit . It fits by looking backwards rather than looking at the present. The koreans like to claim they have 7000 years of history on the Korean Peninsula as a korean nation. That is simply not true, but they have a very, very long history as one united people. They have become very divergent but that has been a recent development in the last 50 years. They look at the very long past they have had together as proof that in the future we can reunified. We can reunify the race. How exactly would that happen . That very much remains to be seen. It is not clear how that would happen. The official plan is for a loose confederation between the north and the south while they try to work up a very sticky details of how you would reunify the state. Practically, it is probably impossible as long as the kim regime is in power in the north, but that does not stop koreans from wishing that it would happen. To protect the partition, the United States has had troops there since the end of the conflict. How many troops are on the ground and how many are from the south . I believe there are 28,000 troops on the Korean Peninsula right now spread on bases throughout korea. Except they are under a base Reconcentration Program right now. The next three years they will be reconcentrated into a really large base south of seoul. This is important because previously they were stationed around the dmz, which means they were a trip wire force. Any invasion of the south by the north would mean the immediate shedding of american blood which would guarantee american entrance into the war. That would probably still happen, but the dynamics have changed. One of the reasons they wanted to do that was too narrow the american footprint in south korea, concentrate the americans into one zone and get them out of the center of seoul. Previously the largest base has ended up being right in the middle of seoul. When it was originally constructed it was outside, but seoul has grown so rapidly that the base is now in the very center. This is a minor irritant for the koreans to have a large garrison , of foreign troops stationed in your capital. Does the south korean Government Support the u. S. Presence . It certainly does. It certainly does. Now in a perfect world, the , koreans would wish the United States was not there. They would wish they could manage their own security on their own. But i think it is a widely held view that the u. S. Presence is needed to balance the competing interests of china, of north korea, formerly of the soviet union. But the koreans would certainly like to live in a world where the americans could be gone. There is that tension of meeting needing the americans but not necessarily wanting them. You said it is impossible as long as the kim regime is in power. Give us a brief history of the kim regime. The kim regime initially the , first leader is kim ilsung who was a guerrilla fighter against the japanese. He was very young. He was an officer in the red army. He was brought into north korea by the soviet union to establish who established him as a puppet leader. When they did that, they were probably thinking they could exert more influence on him than in fact they could. In fact, kim ilsung maintained an independent line, both from the soviet union and from the Chinese Communist party. After he consolidated power in north korea. Be ruled north korea until the early 1990s, at which point his son kim jongil took over and then with his death in the early teens, kim jongun, his grandson, took over. When youre watching news reports and other ways you get information as a historian on kim jongun, how do you see his leadership style comparing with predecessors, his father and grandfather . It is a bit hard to tell. It is still a bit early. And it is difficult to credit a lot of the news reports that come out of north korea. It is very, very opaque, what goes on. There are tales of extreme violence which may or may not be true. It is true that he has definitely purged some of the holdover leadership from his fathers regime, including his uncle. It seems unlikely that his style of leadership is going to end up results that in are all that different from what his father and grandfather pursued. What should the American Public know about the everyday koreans life and how it has changed in the years since the conflict . It is important understand that North Koreans live very tremendously by what class they are a part of. There is the core class that lives in pyongyang which has a fairly good life by north korean standards. An excellent life by north korean standards. They would not compare much to the life of a highlevel bureaucrat in the west, but these people generally do not get hungry, they live in buildings that have heat, they have a certain amount of privilege. Than there are millions of other North Koreans in what is referred to as the wavering class who live in immense deprivation, in a daily struggle for subsistence. There is not a lot of starvation going on right now but there was a time when north , koreans in these wavering classes were starving by the hundreds of thousands. I think it is important understand that the kim regime actually uses underdevelopment as a way of maintaining its power. This is what makes it different from all of the soviet regimes. You make a mistake if we still think of north korea as a communist regime. They modified their constitution in the early 2000s to remove all references of communism. This is not a state interested in developing its people. It is interested in keeping them underdeveloped. Because people that the spent 12 or 14 hours a day trying to meet their own subsistence are not a people that will be threatening to the regime. They are too busy with their own survival. We occasionally see these dramatic bids for escape, most recently a soldier from north korea that crossed the lines. Our policy is based on the fact that we presume all the North Koreans wish for a better life and for some semblance of a democratic process to is that the case . Im not sure that is. I think if you would ask north , koreans, they would see the 1960s and the 1970s under kim ilsung as a golden era. What they would prefer is to go back to that rather than life in the west. What is the golden era . The golden era was they had economically secure lives. At that time north korea had a robust ration system, nobody went hungry. They were developing the nation fairly quickly. North koreans lived in apartments with heat. Their lives were fairly good, especially compared to what they had under the japanese. There is an ideological element to it. Most or many north korean defectors who live in the south find south korean existence very empty because their lives are about nothing from their perspective besides the pursuit of profits, which they are taught to disparage. Where life in north koreas about something, it is about maintaining the north korean race. About maintaining the north korean revolution and every north korean has a purpose in that struggle. A lot of them, especially the north korean defectors, say terrible things about kim jongun. What a terrible leader he is. There are less likely to say those things about kim jongil and youll never hear them say , anything about kim ilsung. I think even north korean defectors see kim ilsung as a visionary leader and a great nationalist for the korean people. What should the everyday american know about the current south korean government . The attitude towards the United States and the west . I think it is important to understand that South Koreans have a sense of grievance against the United States, not just because of the division, it is wellknown that we divided korea and established a separate state. We help establish a separate state. Then we left korea in 1949 against the wishes of the south korean government at that time who begged us to stay, who said if you leave, the North Koreans will invade. When we left they asked for concrete guarantees from the United States that in the event of a northern invasion we would come back. Those guarantees were never given. This is part of the reason that Joseph Stalin ultimately gave kim ilsung permission to invade south korea. That was not the only factor, but that was an important factor and one the South Koreans have not forgotten. In fact if you go to the war , Memorial Museum in seoul you will see it laid out that it was the lack of American Security guarantees that encouraged the north to invade. There is an underlying sense of distrust against the americans. When our president does things like call South Koreans free riders on American Security threatens to tear up the korea , free trade agreement, these things are very upsetting to South Koreans. When he refers to the sea between korea and japan as the sea of japan instead of the east sea as is normal in previous president ial administrations, it makes South Koreans blood boil. There is the possibility that a preemptive or preventative strike against north korea without firm South Koreans support could lead to a backlash against the american presence in south korea that could have unforeseen consequences. As far as our position in east asia. This is the historians lesson for the age, to understand we do not have a rock solid ally in south korea. We do at the moment, but that could change drastically with a rash american decision. It is also possible we could do this and get away with it, but nobody knows. I feel like there is a whole subset of possibilities as to how this crisis could play out. We tend to think if we start the north x number of South Koreans first, are going to die. That is not a complete the spurious conclusion. However i think it would make , much more sense from the north korean perspective if we were to attack them, not to level seoul, but to point out to South Koreans that americans had just rolled the dice with tens of millions of korean lives hanging in the balance. Which is what we would be doing. And then to ask the South Koreans, do you really think you still need the americans, because in fact they are the greatest threat to security on the peninsula. We have a couple of minutes left with you. We have referenced china a few times in the conversation. What is the current influence that china can exert on north korea . We always see from our policy makers that we are looking to them to have a bigger footprint there and to help stabilize the kim jongun regime. What kind of influence do they have . The chinese have tremendous influence but it is a blunt weapon. The chinese could put enormous pressure on the north korean regime. They could cut oil exports to the regime. They could cut imports from the regime in a china but doing so , would risk the collapse of the north korean regime. Most of the people would not go south, they would go north into china. Because the northern border is not militarized at all. In some places it is early even marked. That is the chosen route by defectors. This is not at all what the chinese want because they could lose a buffer between themselves and the americans in the south , and on the other hand there is a tremendous number of ethnic koreans who are chinese citizens, who live in that region and this is one of the minority populations in china that has had no problems with latent nationalism. The North Koreans if anything are extreme and ardent nationalists and you would be inviting tens of millions of them into your country which has problems with rest of minorities in other places. This is not at all what the chinese want. The chinese very much want the North Koreans to behave, they want them to stop doing missile tests, but they do not have a way of forcing them to do it. They basically have one button they can push and the repercussions from pushing that button could be much more severe than they want. Lets spend a minute on are other important ally in the region japan. , what are their concerns and how they matured or changed . The effect of this crisis on japan is absolutely alarming, and maybe one of the bigger stories that is not being told. For the first time in decades the japanese are talking about rearmament. Japan has an explicitly pacifist constitution. We wrote it for them after the war. They officially have no armed forces, they do not possess the right to wage war, to wage offensive war outside of japan, all of that is changing now because of the north korean threat and the japanese are beginning to discuss revising their constitution. This matters because relations between the South Koreans and the japanese are not good. Japanese militarism causes further distrust among the South Koreans. One way i think of viewing what the North Koreans are doing is forcing all of the nations involved south korea, the United States, and japan to ask fundamental questions about the relationship with each other and about the security of northeast asia. This is at a time when the answer to those questions will not be agreeable to all parties. In closing, as a historian, is there a metaphor you can use to describe the Current Situation as youre looking at it . I am thinking is it a tinderbox waiting for a spark or something other than that . I think a better metaphor might be some sort of precarious tower that is fairly strong but brittle, something made of iron. It is strong, but it cannot stand a lot of shocks. It can look strong and collapse suddenly. I think our alliances with south korea, with japan are fairly strong and very robust, but that does not mean that certain actions, particularly about preventative strikes against north korea, could cause this edifice to come down with shocking speed. Dr. Fields, a very timely subject for historians. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you very much. Tweet us at cspan history. Madman across the water asking about an issue that resounds today. This question is about how many people were fathered by gis in vietnam. How are they treated 45 years after the u. S. Departure . You can be featured in our next with program. Join the conversation on facebook. And on twitter. Cspans history series landmark cases returns with 12 new Supreme Court cases. 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