朝鲜攻击事件考验韩国容忍度-华尔街日报

韩国可以忍耐到什么限度？

朝鲜周二炮袭韩国一处岛屿，并造成人员丧生，再次清楚地彰显作为半岛近60年僵局主要特征的一个安全悖论：虽然朝鲜的军事和经济力量更弱，但它却能够随心所欲地对韩国实施打击，同时还不担心韩国还手。

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images韩国总统李明博（中）周二在国防部长Kim Tae-Young（右）和Gen. Han Min-Koo（后）的陪同下抵达国防部控制中心。自朝鲜战争在1953年以一纸停战协议而结束以来，朝鲜通过致命或可能致命的暴力行动对韩国做出了30多次挑衅。它曾炸毁韩国一架飞机，刺杀韩国总统府成员，向韩国军舰开火，并通过陆路或水下派遣特种部队杀害韩国人。

韩国的反应多种多样，有贸易制裁，也有切断通讯和经济援助，但从来没有采取过军事报复措施。而这样一种模式看来很有可能还会延续下去，尽管周二的炮袭是朝鲜在战后第一次打击韩国的陆上目标。

服务于金融企业的风险咨询公司有关化险咨询方面的(Control Risks)驻北京分析师吉洛姆(Andrew Gilholm)说，摆在韩国面前的问题是，这些攻击的严重程度再提高多少，任其而为、表明朝鲜实施打击没有代价的风险，就会超过刺激朝鲜做出过度反应的风险；我自己认为其严重程度还没有达到那么高。

韩国面临的一部分风险在于，作为其最大城市和首都的首尔离朝韩边境仅隔30英里，而朝鲜已经在边境地区布置了数百台火箭炮，几分钟就可以打到首尔。朝鲜还拥有数百枚中短程导弹，可以打到韩国的任何地方。

除此以外，韩国9,000亿美元的经济体位居世界第15位，并集中了电子、钢铁、汽车和石化等行业的一些全球知名制造企业，如果朝鲜半岛爆发敌对行为，这些行业就会蒙受损失。

首尔警察科学研究所(Police Science Institute)朝鲜问题分析师Yoo Dong-ryul说，朝鲜认为韩国绝对不会反击，这一点已经被朝鲜了然于心；他们知道韩国人民和韩国政府是害怕战争的。

韩国总统李明博(Lee Myung-bak)一位幕僚说，李明博周二间晚发言说，韩国应当惩罚朝鲜，力度是朝鲜打击力度的数倍。但同一位幕僚在早些时候说，李明博在召开高级安全顾问紧急会议时，下的第一道命令就是“确保此事不升级”。周二炮袭事件过后，李明博没有公开亮相。

此事离韩国巡逻舰“天安号”沉没事件仅隔数月之久，是李明博面临的一项新的考验。天安号当时是在朝韩海上分界线最西端岛屿附近沉没的，造成46名海军官兵丧生。

事件发生后两个月内，李明博都没有归咎于朝鲜，直到军舰残骸被分批打捞出海，一枚朝鲜鱼雷的爆炸后残片被发现。他下令实施多项经济惩罚措施，但选择范围有限，因为韩国已经收紧了对朝鲜的援助，并已遵守联合国安理会(Security Council)在去年平壤核试爆后实施的其他制裁措施。

就连一项象征性的惩罚措施，当时李明博也没有完全实施。但这项措施是朝鲜批评得最为猛烈的，即通过喇叭向边境另一边进行宣传鼓动。朝鲜威胁向喇叭开火。

曾在平壤担任计算机科学教授、现身在首尔的高层朝鲜“脱北者”Kim Heung-kwang说，当初韩国政府对天安号事件的应对应该更加强硬一些；它拖延了宣传反击措施。

Evan Ramstad Attack Tests South Korea's Limits
With Tuesday's deadly rocket attack on a South Korean island, North Korea once again threw a harsh light on the security paradox that has defined the inter-Korean standoff for nearly six decades: that, despite being a weaker country militarily and economically, North Korea has been able to lash out at South Korea at will and without fear of being struck back.

Since the Korean War ended in a cease-fire in 1953, North Korea has provoked South Korea more than 30 times with acts of fatal or life-threatening violence. It has blown up a South Korean airplane, assassinated members of the South's presidential cabinet, fired at naval ships and sent commandos to kill South Koreans over land and in submarines.

South Korea's responses have varied from trade sanctions to cutoffs of communication and economic aid, but it has never retaliated militarily. And that pattern looked set to continue despite the fact that Tuesday's artillery attack was the first time since the war that North Korea struck at land-based targets.

'The question for South Korea is how much more serious can these attacks get before the risk of doing nothing and showing there's no cost is worse than the risk of prompting an overreaction by North Korea,' said Andrew Gilholm, analyst in Beijing for Control Risks, a risk consultancy for financial firms. 'My own view is we're still not at that level.'

Part of the risk South Korea faces is that its largest city and capital, Seoul, is just 30 miles from the inter-Korean border, where North Korea has lined up hundreds of artillery rockets that could reach the city in minutes. North Korea also possesses several hundred short- and mid-range missiles that could strike every point within the South.

In addition, South Korea's $900 billion economy is the world's 15th-largest and the country is home to globally known manufacturers of electronics, steel, automobiles and petrochemicals -- industries that would be damaged by a breakout of hostilities on the Korean peninsula.

'North Korea thinks that the South will never counterattack. It has been learned,' says Yoo Dong-ryul, a North Korea analyst at the Police Science Institute in Seoul. 'They know that the South Korean people, as well as the government, are afraid of a war.'

An aide to President Lee Myung-bak said he remarked on Tuesday evening that South Korea should 'punish them several times the amount they did to us.' The same aide, however, said earlier that Mr. Lee's first command at an emergency meeting of his top security advisers was to 'make sure this doesn't escalate.' Mr. Lee made no public appearances after Tuesday's attack.

The incident is a new test for Mr. Lee, just months after the South Korean patrol ship Cheonan sank near the westernmost island along the inter-Korean maritime border, killing 46 sailors.

Mr. Lee refrained from blaming North Korea for two months, until the ship was retrieved in parts from the ocean and parts of an exploded North Korean torpedo were found. He ordered several economic penalties, but he had limited options because South Korea already had restricted its aid to the North and had complied with other sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council after Pyongyang tested a nuclear explosive last year.

Then, Mr. Lee stopped short of imposing even a symbolic penalty, but the one North Korea criticized the most: the blasting of propaganda messages across the inter-Korean border from loudspeakers. North Korea threatened to shoot the speakers.

'The South Korean government should have been stronger in its response to the Cheonan incident,' said Kim Heung-kwang, a high-ranking North Korean defector in Seoul, who was a computer-science professor in Pyongyang. 'It delayed the speaker counterattack.'

Evan Ramstad