Until last week, global opinion about South Korea was remarkably uniform: The country was universally regarded as a stable and developed democratic state, one of the few in Asia. It was seen as one of the world’s leading high-tech economies. And it was considered the level-headed counterpart to an irrational and aggressive northern neighbor that is always ready to resort to provocations and violence.

This perception became outdated literally overnight, when President Yoon Suk-yeol declared martial law on Dec. 3 in a shocking, anachronistic and ultimately doomed attempt to turn the clock back half a century.