By David Bender

    Comparing Syria and South Korea may seem to be odd endeavor, but the two countries have more in common that one might suppose.  Both countries have faced many similar challenges in the post-World War II era, but each has responded in dramatically different ways.  Today South Korea is one of the riches countries in the world having recently become one of 14 countries with a trillion dollar economy and the highest rate of broadband-wired homes anywhere.  Syria’s economy, while continuing to make modest gains, struggles to grow at a rate to keep up with population growth.  

    In 1965, Syria had a per capita GDP of $272 and South Korea’s was $106 (both in 2004 dollars).  Both Syria and South Korea entered in the post-War era as states trying to recover from long colonial periods.  In the case of Syria, the result of the French occupation was dysfunctional political institutions and a backward economy (they also had to deal with 400 years of Ottoman rule, which ranged from enlightened to utterly backward).  South Korea entered the contemporary era more painfully, with no political institutions and a nearly non-existent economy.  Then to make matters worse, the Korean Peninsula became another color on the map that the USSR and US agreed to divide between themselves.  Korea would not rejoin the community of independent nations as a united entity.  There would be a communist north and a capitalist south (though both would be similarly dictatorial).

    The late 1940’s through the 1950’s were not easy times for either Syria or South Korea.  Both had to deal with new, dangerous, aggressive, and powerful neighbors.  The 1948 War left a powerful impression on Syria as a country.  Thoroughly defeat by the newly declared State of Israel, the Syrian government, along with the society as a whole, made a decision that regaining Palestine and destroying the Zionist Entity would be a primary national mission.

    From the late 1950’s Syria underwent numerous coups and counter-coups and a failed union with Egypt.  Also there was constant Western meddling in Lebanon with the goal of installing a more pro-Western leader in Damascus.  After the failed union with Egypt, there was a return to coups, and finally the establishment of some stable political in 1971, when Hafiz al-Asad came to power.  The 1967 war further cemented the notion that Syria was under threat from Israel.  Israel had proven its military superiority, and unlike in the war in 1948, had even managed to grab a strategically important piece of Syrian territory, the Golan Heights.  

    For the newly defined entity of the Republic of Korea (South Korea), its first years would similarly traumatic.  Aided by the Soviet Union and newly communist China, the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea launched a massive invasion of the south.  Little land was lost or gained in the end, but the Korean Peninsula had once again been fully ravaged by war.

    As the Korean Peninsula emerged as one of the front lines in the Cold War, US policymakers thought it too risky to either withdraw American troops or to trust the South Korean people to elect government that would strongly support the US position against the USSR.  As a result, the US stationed tens of thousands of troops throughout South Korea and supported one brutal military dictator after another.  

    Thus, by the 1970’s it would seem that Syria and South Korea had more in common than might be expected:  superpower meddling, dangerous military threats from neighbors, and autocratic political systems.  Syria continued to have a higher per capita GDP, but the difference was small.

    However post-war South Korea made practical and effective economic and political decisions.  The military dictatorship, while nearly as an oppressive as the one in North Korea, and probably more so than most Syrian governments, decided to sacrifice national sovereignty by accepting the United States military presence in the country.  But they then implemented very intelligence economic policies.  Starting in the 1960’s, the South Korean government created close ties between the state and business, offering credit, tariff protections, and sponsoring development in certain fields, such as the emerging electronics industry.  Rather than looking for raw materials to export and thus becoming dependent on world commodity prices, the government promoted the importation of raw materials and the export of finished goods.  Such a policy creates high prices and shortages among consumer goods in the domestic market, but the military police was able to handle, with often with brutal tactics, any civil unrest.

    While the science of it is still being worked out—does A lead to B or vice-versa—there clearly is a link between material prosperity and political rights.  During the 1980’s, South Korea experienced spectacular economic growth.  At the same time, there was serious unrest among students and unions and by 1993, after 32 years of military dictatorship, the South Koreans elected their first civilian president.  Within a decade, South Korea had asked most US troops not stationed along the DMZ to leave and the US complied.  South Korea had become too important an economic and political ally to risk antagonizing it.  Around the same time, South Korean actually broke with the US in dealing with the North and held its own set of talks with their northern neighbor as part of its Sunshine Policy.  South Korea today has emerged as an important player in East Asian politics and a major economic actor in the world.

    Syria, though, has remained isolated.  With a backward economy and dysfunctional political system, Syria’s importance mainly comes from its geo-strategic location.  However this need not be the case.  Much of Syria’s marginalized status comes from the fact that it has little to offer Israel, the United States, or Europe.  When South Korea wants to make a point, the world needs to listen, as it is now probably the third most important country in East Asia.  Part of the reason that peace between Israel and Syria is so difficult is that for a treaty to be signed the Israelis are going to have to give up the Golan.  Syria has little to offer in return in terms of political support or economic incentives.  If Syria had a more dynamic economy and could offer the world investment opportunities and meaningful trade agreements, the lack of respect accorded Syria today would have to change.

    Such a reorientation, however, would be more radical than anything that has happened in Syria in decades.  Syria reversing course would undermine Baathist ideals, betray the cause of Palestine, and give up its status as the last Arab country with a government not allied (at least tacitly) with the US.  For the moment Syria under far too much international pressure and the region is far too unstable to try anything so risky.  But South Korea ought to be an example showing that a focus on economic development at the expense of limited notions of national pride can actually increase a state’s national sovereignty in the end.  

    There are certainly numerous factors that could be cited that show the situational differences between Syria and South Korea.  The largely unchallenged American supremacy in the Pacific during the Cold War, the special relationship between Israel and the US (and Europe), the rise of Islamism, and massive oil reserves have all worked to the disadvantage of Middle Eastern countries.  Nonetheless, for me, the question remains:  What if South Korea had decided in the late 1950’s that it would first work towards reuniting the entire Korea Peninsula and after that was accomplished, it would begin to concentrate on economic development?

    Thus the questions is less about specific contexts for development and more about an attitude towards a national mission. Syria is faced with a choice and as a non-Syrian myself I cannot claim to know what is best, however I see little evidence among Syrians that they understand that there is a choice to be made.  Neither resistance to the American global system nor acceptance of it is easy or without risk, but until there is a broad understand of the choice between the two within Syria society there is little chance that either effective anti-imperialist resistance or significant economic progress will occur.