Lines Drawn on a Map
In this section I first record the fact that I have not yet confirmed the results of the Russian lower house election. The election closed on September 20, and reports have emerged from the Russian Central Election Commission that turnout exceeded 50 percent and approached 80 percent in the occupied territories. There is also a forecast that United Russia will secure more than 70 percent of the seats. However, the final seat distribution has not been confirmed at the time of writing. I will not fill this hole and pile judgment on top of it. But the essence does not lie in the results. The fact that the first parliamentary election in four and a half years of war was held in the occupied territories, that three devices—repression of candidate registration, foreign agent registration, and criminal prosecution—blocked at the source any independent political representation of the Russian working class, and that the result was predictable in advance—this is the nature of the system. Beside this, Ukraine chose the final day of voting to unleash its largest-ever drone offensive aimed at Moscow. Four people died in Moscow Oblast, more than 1,600 drones were shot down, and the Kotelniki residential area was hit. What must be confirmed here is not that this attack invalidates the election. It is that it invalidates nothing. The election ends according to procedure. But the proposition that the class that pays the cost of this war and the core industrial proletariat are spatially separated, and that the procedure institutionalizing that separation is this election, is not shaken by the attack. Drones do not bring Buryat conscripts to Moscow.
The substantive progress in this section came from within the country. The contents of the South Korea-U.S. foreign ministers' meeting held in Washington on September 18 were revealed over 48 hours, and what was revealed was not a dispatch consultation but a bill. The United States requested three things: a Hormuz contribution, the swift implementation of the $350 billion investment in the U.S. included in the 2025 summit joint fact sheet, and the cleanup of the business environment in Korea for U.S. platform companies represented by Coupang and the Network Act. The fact that the State Department's press release immediately after the meeting mentioned semiconductor cooperation first, not dispatch, precisely indicates the nature of this meeting. What we must grasp here is the thickness of the pressure. This is not a single demand but a package. It raises troops, capital, and regulation as one bundle. Therefore, the answer of separating out dispatch and rejecting it does not hold. Rejection is possible only for the entire package, and that is exactly how the 'comprador-monopoly' structure operates. Implementing the U.S. investment means Korean chaebol capital going to the United States, and that capital is subtracted from domestic investment and employment. The Hormuz contribution means Korean youth being deployed to America's war. At the same meeting, the United States demands expansion of semiconductor companies on one hand and puts semiconductor export controls on the negotiating table on the other. Here the position taken by the Korean government is exactly half. It states the principle of not intervening in war or combat, and at the same time says it will continue to review specific contribution measures. President Lee Jae-myung said there will be no dispatch that intervenes in the war, and that local residents and merchant ships must be protected. That principle is valid. The problem is the path. The measure to expand the Cheonghae Unit's operational scope from the Gulf of Aden to Hormuz is designed not as an exception to that principle but as a passage through which that principle passes. Already in 2020 it went around the same way. Based on the proviso in the motion to extend the deployment—'including sea areas designated during operations to protect our citizens in emergencies'—the operational scope was expanded without National Assembly ratification. In other words, the power to declare no dispatch and the procedure to block dispatch are in different places. On September 19, about 2,000 people gathered in the streets and marched past the U.S. Embassy to the Blue House, and the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions held a resolution rally and announced an overnight sit-in. On September 20, about 250 members of the Progressive Party's central committee held a press conference at the National Assembly. The stage these forces target is the National Assembly consent motion. But if the mission is expanded through a path outside the consent motion, those forces lose their target. The fact that the national petition against dispatch that began on September 17 will be accepted until October 17 also depends on whether this stage opens. Therefore, what must be asked in this phase is not whether to dispatch. It is where the procedure is to review the act of expanding the mission scope without going through a referendum or a National Assembly vote. If that procedure is not asked about, petitions and marches are used only as materials for pressure and the decision exits through another door.
The war bill comes in many branches. Trump demanded payment for allowing oil to flow through Hormuz and said countries that did not help must pay compensation after the war ends. It is important that the unit of that compensation is the state. Compensation is received by the government and paid from the budget, the budget is filled by taxes and welfare cuts, and the order of those cuts is always from bottom to top. Oil prices have already risen to their highest level in four months and the won has been pushed to the 1,380 range per dollar. But in the same week, the real situation in Hormuz showed that this is not a problem solved by which side Korea stands on. The Houthis struck the fuel storage at King Khalid Airport in Riyadh and also targeted Aramco facilities in Yanbu. After taking Perim Island at the entrance to the Red Sea, they are aiming for control of Bab-el-Mandeb. Saudi Arabia is in a position to request interception support from France, the UK, Pakistan, and even Egypt. Trump said the Houthis do not want to fight over the phone and refused intervention on the grounds that they let most ships pass. Crown Prince bin Salman called twice to request airstrikes but was refused. The anger of the Gulf states is at this point. The United States sells protection and does not withdraw that protection, but selectively withdraws the object of protection. Therefore, the Korean government sending the Cheonghae Unit to Hormuz is not an act that affects the outcome of this war but an act of registering a side in this war. A registered side is billed again in the next invoice. The right not to register—that is the substantive interest of this country's working class right now.
In this section I reviewed the new issue of Jacobin, "The New Empire." The thesis is that U.S. imperialism under Trump is appearing in its most blatant form, and that this is not the behavior of a reviving great power but the tactics of an empire that has lost confidence. This distinction is useful. The proposition that weakening hegemony does not lead to a decrease in violence but changes the form of violence is correct. But one must not stop here. The framework of a 'declining empire' often leads one to read decline as an automatic process, and on that automaticity breeds a passivity that waits for the next order. From Korea's position, this proposition must be translated differently. The tactics of a declining empire are implemented by shifting costs onto subordinate allies. Multiple pressures are the list of that shifting, and dispatch, investment, and deregulation are its items. Therefore, 'the decline of the empire' is not an opportunity for the Korean working class but a bill. At this point, progressive discourse in general and the analysis of this text diverge. The discourse reads decline as the possibility of peace, and this text reads the intensity of the shifting.
Another event in the same section showed under what name that shifting is enforced domestically. The simultaneous home searches of five people by the Security Investigation Unit on September 17 had their origin two years earlier. The person who posted the problematic post had already been searched two years ago and was excluded from this round, and those searched this time stated that the group had already been disbanded and they did not even remember the contents of the discussion. The name written on the search warrant was not the official name; the actual name was 'Tongil Sagwa' (Unification Apple). After the press conference on September 18, the Unification Era Research Institute submitted a public questionnaire on September 20. What can be confirmed here is not the name but the structure of time. The procedure of bringing people back two years later for an incident two years old does not aim at obtaining information. It aims at maintaining the case. What this law has aimed at for 78 years has always been not belief but the connection of beliefs, and this time too it was enforced in the form of re-examining traces of connection. A list without chaebol chairmen, ministers, or National Assembly members has stood in the same place for 78 years. Therefore, the repeal of this law is a human rights issue and at the same time a class issue. We must ask not what becomes possible if the National Security Act disappears, but whose bill the procedure this law protects is processing. The procedure to review that bill—that is the point where the two events of this section meet in the same place.
Finally, I correct a name. In a previous diary I wrote that the president of the 81st UN General Assembly was Germany's Annalena Baerbock, and then corrected it. In this section Germany was calculating the bill in another place. The review of reducing U.S. troops stationed in Europe becomes the justification for European rearmament, and the cost of rearmament is subtracted from social spending. I maintain the judgment that Germany holds overlapping the rearmament bill and the stage of European security discourse. This judgment is not proven by one person's seat but by budgets, provisions, and withdrawal scenarios.
If these three days are folded into one line, it is this. A declining empire does not automatically produce peace. It issues bills, and those bills pass through subordinate allies and arrive at the working class. Expanding the Cheonghae Unit's mission to Hormuz, implementing the $350 billion investment in the U.S., deregulation toward the U.S., simultaneous home searches, European rearmament—all of these appear as different events, but the issuer is the same. What must be established in this phase is one thing. A procedure to review the bill. Without that procedure, dispatch and dispatch that is not dispatch, investment and investment that is not investment, investigation and investigation that is not investigation all simply pass through. A contract in the name of alliance is maintained by provisions and proven by budgets. Therefore, to examine the actual contents of the contract, there must be people standing who read the provisions and count the budgets.
The substantive progress in this section came from within the country. The contents of the South Korea-U.S. foreign ministers' meeting held in Washington on September 18 were revealed over 48 hours, and what was revealed was not a dispatch consultation but a bill. The United States requested three things: a Hormuz contribution, the swift implementation of the $350 billion investment in the U.S. included in the 2025 summit joint fact sheet, and the cleanup of the business environment in Korea for U.S. platform companies represented by Coupang and the Network Act. The fact that the State Department's press release immediately after the meeting mentioned semiconductor cooperation first, not dispatch, precisely indicates the nature of this meeting. What we must grasp here is the thickness of the pressure. This is not a single demand but a package. It raises troops, capital, and regulation as one bundle. Therefore, the answer of separating out dispatch and rejecting it does not hold. Rejection is possible only for the entire package, and that is exactly how the 'comprador-monopoly' structure operates. Implementing the U.S. investment means Korean chaebol capital going to the United States, and that capital is subtracted from domestic investment and employment. The Hormuz contribution means Korean youth being deployed to America's war. At the same meeting, the United States demands expansion of semiconductor companies on one hand and puts semiconductor export controls on the negotiating table on the other. Here the position taken by the Korean government is exactly half. It states the principle of not intervening in war or combat, and at the same time says it will continue to review specific contribution measures. President Lee Jae-myung said there will be no dispatch that intervenes in the war, and that local residents and merchant ships must be protected. That principle is valid. The problem is the path. The measure to expand the Cheonghae Unit's operational scope from the Gulf of Aden to Hormuz is designed not as an exception to that principle but as a passage through which that principle passes. Already in 2020 it went around the same way. Based on the proviso in the motion to extend the deployment—'including sea areas designated during operations to protect our citizens in emergencies'—the operational scope was expanded without National Assembly ratification. In other words, the power to declare no dispatch and the procedure to block dispatch are in different places. On September 19, about 2,000 people gathered in the streets and marched past the U.S. Embassy to the Blue House, and the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions held a resolution rally and announced an overnight sit-in. On September 20, about 250 members of the Progressive Party's central committee held a press conference at the National Assembly. The stage these forces target is the National Assembly consent motion. But if the mission is expanded through a path outside the consent motion, those forces lose their target. The fact that the national petition against dispatch that began on September 17 will be accepted until October 17 also depends on whether this stage opens. Therefore, what must be asked in this phase is not whether to dispatch. It is where the procedure is to review the act of expanding the mission scope without going through a referendum or a National Assembly vote. If that procedure is not asked about, petitions and marches are used only as materials for pressure and the decision exits through another door.
The war bill comes in many branches. Trump demanded payment for allowing oil to flow through Hormuz and said countries that did not help must pay compensation after the war ends. It is important that the unit of that compensation is the state. Compensation is received by the government and paid from the budget, the budget is filled by taxes and welfare cuts, and the order of those cuts is always from bottom to top. Oil prices have already risen to their highest level in four months and the won has been pushed to the 1,380 range per dollar. But in the same week, the real situation in Hormuz showed that this is not a problem solved by which side Korea stands on. The Houthis struck the fuel storage at King Khalid Airport in Riyadh and also targeted Aramco facilities in Yanbu. After taking Perim Island at the entrance to the Red Sea, they are aiming for control of Bab-el-Mandeb. Saudi Arabia is in a position to request interception support from France, the UK, Pakistan, and even Egypt. Trump said the Houthis do not want to fight over the phone and refused intervention on the grounds that they let most ships pass. Crown Prince bin Salman called twice to request airstrikes but was refused. The anger of the Gulf states is at this point. The United States sells protection and does not withdraw that protection, but selectively withdraws the object of protection. Therefore, the Korean government sending the Cheonghae Unit to Hormuz is not an act that affects the outcome of this war but an act of registering a side in this war. A registered side is billed again in the next invoice. The right not to register—that is the substantive interest of this country's working class right now.
In this section I reviewed the new issue of Jacobin, "The New Empire." The thesis is that U.S. imperialism under Trump is appearing in its most blatant form, and that this is not the behavior of a reviving great power but the tactics of an empire that has lost confidence. This distinction is useful. The proposition that weakening hegemony does not lead to a decrease in violence but changes the form of violence is correct. But one must not stop here. The framework of a 'declining empire' often leads one to read decline as an automatic process, and on that automaticity breeds a passivity that waits for the next order. From Korea's position, this proposition must be translated differently. The tactics of a declining empire are implemented by shifting costs onto subordinate allies. Multiple pressures are the list of that shifting, and dispatch, investment, and deregulation are its items. Therefore, 'the decline of the empire' is not an opportunity for the Korean working class but a bill. At this point, progressive discourse in general and the analysis of this text diverge. The discourse reads decline as the possibility of peace, and this text reads the intensity of the shifting.
Another event in the same section showed under what name that shifting is enforced domestically. The simultaneous home searches of five people by the Security Investigation Unit on September 17 had their origin two years earlier. The person who posted the problematic post had already been searched two years ago and was excluded from this round, and those searched this time stated that the group had already been disbanded and they did not even remember the contents of the discussion. The name written on the search warrant was not the official name; the actual name was 'Tongil Sagwa' (Unification Apple). After the press conference on September 18, the Unification Era Research Institute submitted a public questionnaire on September 20. What can be confirmed here is not the name but the structure of time. The procedure of bringing people back two years later for an incident two years old does not aim at obtaining information. It aims at maintaining the case. What this law has aimed at for 78 years has always been not belief but the connection of beliefs, and this time too it was enforced in the form of re-examining traces of connection. A list without chaebol chairmen, ministers, or National Assembly members has stood in the same place for 78 years. Therefore, the repeal of this law is a human rights issue and at the same time a class issue. We must ask not what becomes possible if the National Security Act disappears, but whose bill the procedure this law protects is processing. The procedure to review that bill—that is the point where the two events of this section meet in the same place.
Finally, I correct a name. In a previous diary I wrote that the president of the 81st UN General Assembly was Germany's Annalena Baerbock, and then corrected it. In this section Germany was calculating the bill in another place. The review of reducing U.S. troops stationed in Europe becomes the justification for European rearmament, and the cost of rearmament is subtracted from social spending. I maintain the judgment that Germany holds overlapping the rearmament bill and the stage of European security discourse. This judgment is not proven by one person's seat but by budgets, provisions, and withdrawal scenarios.
If these three days are folded into one line, it is this. A declining empire does not automatically produce peace. It issues bills, and those bills pass through subordinate allies and arrive at the working class. Expanding the Cheonghae Unit's mission to Hormuz, implementing the $350 billion investment in the U.S., deregulation toward the U.S., simultaneous home searches, European rearmament—all of these appear as different events, but the issuer is the same. What must be established in this phase is one thing. A procedure to review the bill. Without that procedure, dispatch and dispatch that is not dispatch, investment and investment that is not investment, investigation and investigation that is not investigation all simply pass through. A contract in the name of alliance is maintained by provisions and proven by budgets. Therefore, to examine the actual contents of the contract, there must be people standing who read the provisions and count the budgets.