Noblesse Oblige and Sunshine 4.0 — FDR and Stalin, Lee Jae-myung and Kim Jong-un
Is Lee making the same old mistake in his approach to Kim Jong-un? (Image: NKiN archive)
The French term “noblesse oblige,” which literally translates as “nobility obligates,” is defined in various English language dictionaries as the notion that certain people having rank, wealth, or other advantages have an obligation to act generously, in the broadest sense of that term, understandingly, and even solicitously towards those who lack such status or advantages. “Be nice and understanding” to those who are supposedly one’s “inferiors,” is a blunt way of putting it. In the context of international relations, “appeasement,” or what some leftist Korea experts, academics, and journalists euphemistically term “engagement,” may be a more accurate definition.
It is perhaps a noble idea in theory, at least in certain situations, but the problems have always been in its interpretation and practice. If applied inappropriately or carelessly, to those who ignore or even abuse the good intentions which underlie it, the results can be the opposite of promoting the goodwill and harmony which was intended and hoped for, and can actually be quite harmful and even dangerous to those who promote or practice it.
As noted in former Reagan administration official Herbert Romerstein’s important 2012 book Stalin’s Secret Agents, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in a wartime comment to his confidant and first ambassador to the Soviet Union William Bullitt, said that his whole approach in dealing with Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin would be one of noblesse oblige.
“I have just a hunch that Stalin doesn’t want anything but security for his country, and I think that if I give him everything I possibly can and ask nothing from him in return, noblesse oblige, he won’t try to annex anything and will work for world democracy and peace,” FDR reportedly said.
Bullitt, who from his service in Moscow was familiar with the reality of Stalin’s mindset and the true nature of the Soviet system, had earlier been fired for his truth-telling about Stalin, and was unable to dissuade FDR from this fantasy. Convincing FDR that his view was a fantasy would have been especially difficult since the president’s administration and inner circle included not only many pro-Soviet officials at the highest levels, but also some highly placed officials who were working as agents for Stalin’s intelligence services.
When FDR agreed to grant diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Union in 1933, Stalin had promised not to interfere in America’s domestic affairs, but the Soviets clearly had no intention of abiding by this pledge, and quite flagrantly violated from the start, by through their funding and control of the U.S. Communist Party and their continuing espionage activities targeting the U.S. government.
This noblesse oblige approach to relations with Stalin was also to prove disastrous for the peoples of Eastern Europe as well as China and Korea, as the arrangements reached at the Tehran and Yalta wartime summit conferences, even those which acquiesced to the most unreasonable Soviet demands, were not kept by Stalin. Being freed from one totalitarian dictator, newly liberated nations were effectively delivered into the hands of new tyrants. The Soviets plundered the industrial assets of Manchuria and northern Korea, even gaining exclusive bases within China, were awarded Japanese home islands in whole or part, and provided crucial assistance to communist forces in China and northern Korea.
Unfortunately, in the case of Korea, this noblesse oblige fantasy approach to dealing with communist dictators was mirrored in the now infamously failed “Sunshine Policy” of South Korea’s several left-wing leaders over several decades. It was initiated by President Kim Dae-jung, continued with reckless enthusiasm by President Roh Moo-hyun, and further dangerously reinforced by President Moon Jae-in, all of whom emerged from the experience having little or nothing to show for their efforts.
Even after being betrayed by Kim Jong-un, these leaders stubbornly persisted in implementing failed policies by deceiving the public about them. Under Moon, for example, there was the boast that pursuant to the so-called September 19 Inter-Korean Military Agreement of 2018, North Korea had kept its promise to completely disable or dismantle certain guard and observation posts along the DMZ, just as the ROK had done.
As it turned out, however, and was later learned, the North had cheated, and true to its nature had failed to keep its promises in this regard. The North did not fully disable or dismantle its structures but only pretended to have done so. Although a compliant ROK media and some foreign correspondents in Seoul, as well as some U.S.-based Korea experts, naively lauded what they were told was the supposedly successful implementation of the agreement and destruction of the structures, as investigative reporting in 2025 revealed, the Moon administration had deliberately falsified reports in order to cover-up the North’s failure to comply with the agreement. Seoul had kept its promises, but the North had broken them, and the Moon administration had then quite shamelessly lied about it.
Seemingly confirming the adage that humans rarely learn from their past mistakes, the new administration of President Lee Jae-myung is reportedly intent on pursuing what may be termed a “Sunshine Policy 4.0,” complete with presidential comments which are eerily reminiscent of FDR’s noblesse oblige remarks.
Lee has announced that he is committed to restoring what he calls the “spirit” of the September 19 agreement in order to rebuild “trust” with North Korea, while totally ignoring the North’s major and repeated violations of and explicit official renunciation of that pact. Almost channeling FDR, Lee stated, “Even if the North uses hostile language on various occasions, I do not see this as the end,” and “Considerable effort is needed to change the North’s suspicion and confrontational mindset.”
After Kim Jong-un engaged in one of his regular missile-firing provocations, Lee went on to make the astounding claim that Kim Jong-un had been “patient for a long time,” clearly implying that the North’s actions were excusable.
In spite of Lee’s noblesse oblige approach, however, the North again responded with betrayal in the same very typical way that it did with Moon. When Lee removed the ROK’s loudspeakers at the DMZ and ceased its radio broadcasts to the North, Kim Jong-un, far from suspending the North’s own similar activities, kept his loudspeakers targeting the South in place. To make matters worse, the Lee administration, following the dishonest practices of the Moon administration, reportedly lied to the public about this, by falsely claiming that the North had reciprocated by removing its loudspeakers as well.
One major problem with unreciprocated concessions, of course, is that they serve to encourage dictators to demand further concessions and convince them that reciprocal measures are unnecessary. In other words, to put it succinctly, noblesse oblige makes “suckers” out of those who try it.
With regard to both the FDR administration and the Lee administration, the axiom that “personnel is policy,” meaning that the views of those surrounding and counseling the leader of a free nation will inevitably influence his or her policy decisions, seems to be accurate. Just as FDR’s administration was filled with pro-Soviet advisors and other officials who shaped his seriously naive views and ultimately failed policies toward the Soviet Union, so it seems that Lee’s administration, being filled with many left-wing figures whose ideological positions were formed in the deeply anti-American and pro-North Korean movements of the late 1980s and early 1990s and incubated through the left-wing Roh and Moon administration, are clearly shaping Lee’s policies.
As some Korean journalists and academic researchers have disclosed, particularly in conservative publications, but which Seoul’s foreign correspondents have unfortunately failed to notice and report on, Lee’s close alliances with and reliance on certain top advisors and key confidants from the radical left fringes of Korean politics, from his days as Seongnam City mayor and Gyeonggi Province governor, have clearly influenced Lee’s noblesse oblige approach to North Korea.
As Professor Sean McMeekin notes in his useful 2021 book Stalin’s War, FDR’s noblesse oblige mentality and policy eventually became almost “plaintive” in both tone and substance, in contrast to Stalin’s playing “hard to get.” Based on the Lee’s recent remarks, and on the deliberate cover-ups of the North’s betrayals by the Moon and Lee administrations, it seems that Lee, like Moon before him, is also approaching an almost plaintive tone in his appeals to Kim Jong-un and his excuses for the North’s unrelenting hostility and provocations.
While some of the dangerous effects of noblesse oblige, as applied in dealing with communist dictators, may appear almost immediately, even if attempts are made to hide them from the public, the most disastrous results of such an approach, as we have seen from history, often become clear only years later. With regard to Korea, we can only hope that the damage inflicted will not be permanent in nature.
Lawrence Peck is a correspondent for NK Insider based in Seoul and Los Angeles. Having intensively researched and closely monitored the activities of pro-North Korea and other extremist groups and activists in the U.S. for over 25 years, he has been recognized in the U.S. and Korea as one of the leading American authorities on such topics, and has lectured, written extensively and been interviewed on such topics in the U.S. and Korea. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and a Juris Doctor degree from Loyola Law School of Los Angeles. He previously worked in Korea for several of the largest Korean business groups in the fields of intellectual property licensing and international business development. He also serves as an advisor to the North Korea Freedom Coalition of the U.S. Lawrence may be reached at the email address: lawrence.nkinsider@gmail.com
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