[Wang Son-taek] Six takeaways from failed self-coup investigation

Earlier in the week, special counsel Cho Eun-suk released the results of a six-month investigation into the insurrection case involving former President Yoon Suk Yeol. With this announcement, key standards have now been established regarding the circumstances, background, responsible actors and possible directions for punishment surrounding the attempted self-coup by a sitting president, which stunned the Korean public just over a year ago.

While the findings themselves did not diverge significantly from what many had anticipated, several aspects deserve special attention. These points are not merely about assigning blame; they offer lessons that should serve as a cautionary reference for future generations.

First, the most striking revelation concerns Yoon’s motivation for illegally declaring martial law, which ultimately led to his own ruin.

According to the special counsel, Yoon concluded that the use of force to eliminate political opponents and to monopolize power and retain it amounted to insurrection. The investigation further identified the attempt to neutralize the judicial risks facing his wife, Kim Keon Hee, as one of the underlying motives. A president endowed with immense authority for the purpose of safeguarding the Constitution and advancing democracy instead resolved to become a destroyer of both. Despite Korea’s long tradition of people-centered governance, the attempted subversion of constitutional order represents an unimaginable betrayal.

There is no absolute guarantee that another authoritarian-minded leader will not one day assume the presidency. The lesson here is clear: institutional safeguards designed to block the possibility of a presidential self-coup must be constantly reviewed, reinforced, and tested.

Second, Yoon deliberately exploited the divided Korean Peninsula while plotting the self-coup.

The special counsel concluded that Yoon actively sought to escalate inter-Korean military tensions to justify a declaration of martial law. His strategy involved provoking North Korea into a military response by deploying drones into Pyongyang’s airspace. The plan ultimately failed because North Korea, preoccupied with other strategic concerns such as its involvement in Russia's war in Ukraine, chose not to respond directly.

Third, when efforts to induce a North Korean provocation collapsed, Yoon pivoted to a different pretext.

He claimed that anti-state forces were operating domestically and that martial law was therefore necessary to eradicate them. References to “anti-state forces” in his official speeches in 2023 and 2024 must now be understood as part of a deliberate effort to manufacture legitimacy for the self-coup.

Taken together, these maneuvers of attempting to provoke North Korea and fabricating threats from internal enemies vividly illustrate the profound harm produced by national division. For Koreans, division is a historic tragedy and a central national challenge that must be resolved. The Constitution underscores this reality, explicitly instructing the president to strive for peaceful reunification several times. That a president entrusted with this responsibility instead exploited division to justify an illegal martial law and heighten tensions on the peninsula is not merely disappointing; it is enraging.

This episode underscores the need for vigilant oversight of top public officials to prevent grave misjudgments regarding inter-Korean relations. It also highlights the importance of systematic education about the structure and consequences of division itself.

Fourth, the investigation exposed another justification cited by Yoon as false: the claim that martial law was necessary to investigate alleged election fraud.

The special counsel concluded that Yoon deployed military forces to the National Election Commission on the day of martial law with the intention of declaring the April 2024 general election fraudulent and invalidating its results. This was not a case of reckless behavior driven by a belief in conspiracy theories. Rather, Yoon appears to have drawn inspiration from the conspiracies to engineer a scheme aimed at overturning a legitimately conducted election.

That baseless conspiracy theories evolved into an actual attempt to manipulate electoral outcomes should serve as a serious warning. It is time to consider institutional remedies for a situation in which the dissemination of unfounded election fraud claims carries no meaningful consequences.

Fifth, the claim that an “opposition dictatorship” compelled Yoon to act has also been discredited.

In his martial law announcement on Dec. 3, 2024, Yoon argued that the opposition party’s landslide victory in the April 2024 election followed by impeachment efforts against Cabinet ministers and budget reductions had paralyzed governance. However, the special counsel determined that Yoon had already decided on insurrection and begun concrete preparations as early as October 2023. Military reshuffles conducted at the time were explicitly designed with a potential emergency rule scenario in mind.

In a democracy, it is entirely natural for a party that wins a general election to play a larger role in governance. This is not obstruction; it is the institutional expression of the people’s will. To label such outcomes as sabotage and to launch a coup aimed at eliminating the opposition constitutes a direct violation of democracy’s most fundamental principles. Such acts demand unequivocal condemnation and accountability to ensure that no future leader entertains similar ambitions.

Sixth, even amid this anachronistic invocation of emergency powers, it is notable that some public officials equipped with democratic common sense and rational judgment managed to extricate themselves from the vortex of insurrection.

Former national security adviser Shin Won-sik reportedly opposed the president’s martial law plans in July 2024 while serving as defense minister. Although he was subsequently sidelined, he was not indicted and avoided imprisonment. Shin’s case exposes the emptiness of claims by senior officials that they were “forced” into complicity by presidential orders.

The lesson is unmistakable: Dignity in public office requires adherence to democratic norms and rational judgment, even under pressure from the highest authority.

Based on the special counsel’s findings, Koreans can be satisfied with the strength of their democracy while also recognizing the deviant behavior of certain elites. If this moment leads to an upgrade of national-level democratic education and, more broadly, renewed attention to humanities education grounded in common sense and rationality, it may ultimately be remembered as a case in which crisis was transformed into opportunity.

Wang Son-taek

Wang Son-taek is an adjunct professor at Sogang University. He is a former diplomatic correspondent at YTN and a former research associate at Yeosijae. The views expressed here are the writer’s own. — Ed.