The most vulnerable society to North Korea's nuclear threat is not the United States; it is South Korea. The country that should be most eager to gather intelligence on North Korea's nuclear development should be South Korea - not the United States or Japan. So you would expect that when the North Korean nuclear scientists were smuggled out, South Korea would be part of the operation that helped them.

But, as always, it was Washington that masterminded the operation, not Seoul. That reminds me of years ago when the North Korean ambassador to Egypt, who was very knowledgeable about Pyongyang's missile exports, defected; he went to the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, not the South Korean Embassy. We got a wealth of information from him about the missiles that threaten us, and we got it because of U.S. goodwill. Those missiles can reach the whole of the peninsula - but we entrust our destiny to others.

The recent defections were first reported in the foreign media. You would expect our government to be well informed about them. But officials at Cheong Wa Dae and the Foreign Ministry were saying even two days after the report appeared that they could not confirm it. Granted, it is a sensitive intelligence matter, so they may be unable to comment on it; but it seems more likely that they had no information at all.

Those officials were unable to confirm the report because Washington does not tell us everything. Perhaps our intelligence authority did learn about the defections through official channels; but again, judging by their comments and frustration, they seem to have been completely in the dark.

Judging by the response of the U.S. government, even if the reports prove false, there must be something to them. But we were completely alienated from the operation, apparently. This is a disgrace for our government. If the same thing happened to Britain or France, there would be a diplomatic row. But I see no signs that our government was the least bit angry or ashamed about it.

Why not? Because our government and people have become used to this kind of situation. Seoul has been excluded from this week's talks to resolve the nuclear crisis, talks on which our lives depend. We accept the snub, rationalizing it by saying we have to be realistic. Then reports emerge that the United States, enlisting the aid of China, may try to oust Pyongyang's leadership; again, South Korea is left out. It's become normal.

If you don't have the will or make the effort to change reality then someone else will determine your destiny. We've built up bitter memories over the past 100 years for failing to determine our destiny, but still haven't learned our lesson. We are under North Korea's threat of weapons of mass destruction, and artillery that can reach Seoul. Our survival depends on grasping the reality of that threat, and removing it.

But the grasping is being done by the United States, not by us. Many people who are unashamed of this, who don't think it a problem, still call for South Korea to be self-reliant. So here's the reality: We have no determination to gather intelligence on North Korea, so we get none if the United States withholds what it gathers. We get little rushes of independence, but in fact our independence is getting farther away. This is our reality, and our destiny.

The writer is an editorial writer of the Chosun Ilbo's political desk April 23, 2003