Global Courant 2023-04-26 19:47:06
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol is in Washington this week and his trip comes at a time when the US, South Korea and North Korea are mired in a vortex of escalation, counter-escalation. The security dilemma is alive and well on the Korean peninsula. Is there a way out?
Daniel DePetris, writing for Pacific Forum, says, “The most dramatic shift would be the recognition by the United States and its allies that denuclearization is unfeasible.” Global Courant is republishing the piece below.
Relatedly, Biden and Yoon were expected to spend a separate statement on the U.S.’s expanded deterrence commitment to South Koreawhich clearly follows a renewed debate over whether the ROK itself should have a nuclear deterrent.
This is reported by the Wall Street Journal“The U.S. has agreed to give Seoul a greater voice in talks over a possible U.S. nuclear response to a North Korean attack in exchange for forgoing developing its own nuclear weapons,” U.S. officials said.
Here’s the DePetris article:
North Korea conducted another intercontinental ballistic missile test on April 13, its second in less than a month. However, unlike previous launches, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un presided what Pyongyang claimed was an ICBM powered by a solid fuel engine.
This would mark another milestone in Pyongyang’s decades-long effort to establish an operational missile capability, despite being subject to one of the strictest UN Security Councils. sanction regimes existing.
A reliable North Korean solid fuel ICBM would be of particular interest to the United States during a wartime contingency – solid fuel missiles can be quickly assembled, are easier to hide compared to liquid-fueled variants, and can be prepared on site, giving the United States much less time to locate and neutralize them before launch.
As expected, the United States, South Korea and Japan condemned the latest test. Tokyo, that issued an emergency alarmt to residents of Hokkaido Island, requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council.
The following day, Washington authorized two separate bilateral military exercises with South Korea and Japan, including B-52 bombers and F-35 fighters. The exercises were designed to send a message: More missile tests, especially those with the capacity to hit targets in the mainland United States, will result in more defensive action by Washington and its East Asian allies in response.
Drilling begets drilling
None of these moves are particularly surprising. The Biden administration is making significant efforts this year to bolster the credibility of the U.S.’s expanded deterrence for its South Korean and Japanese allies.
In January, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and South Korean Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup held a series of meetings in Seoul, where Washington committed to “improve the implementation of the extended US deterrence” by deploying more US strategic assets on and near the Korean Peninsula.
This came about two weeks after South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol suggested it may be time for South Korea to build its own nuclear weapons, or at least to allow the return of US tactical warheads on South Korean soil. to ask. Comment from Yoon received the attention of US defense officials; several U.S. strategic combat systems have been rotated to the area in the following months.
In February, US and South Korean officials took part exercises on the table at the Pentagon with a specific focus on responding to a number of scenarios related to North Korean nuclear use. US B-1B Lancers participated in exercises with South Korean forces at least four times this year. The USS Nimitz, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, docked in the South Korean port city of Busan the end of March. In April, Washington and Seoul conducted the largest field exercises in five years.
There are also individual exercises, including trilateral anti-submarine warfare exercises between US, South Korean and Japanese naval forces. Similar exercises are now underway, with Washington, Seoul and Tokyo set to regularize them in the future to improve naval interoperability.
This has predictably led to strong countermeasures from the North Koreans. The “security dilemma” – whereby “defensive” exercises are seen by the opponent as a belligerent action – is alive and well on the Korean Peninsula. What Washington, Seoul and Tokyo find perfectly justified, Pyongyang sees as aggressive and thus deserves retaliation.
Can the cycle of escalation be broken?
It’s hard to see this cycle ending soon. Usually such situations are managed through diplomatic engagement, either between the parties (often discreetly) or through a trusted intermediary. Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be a diplomatic channel on the horizon.
The Biden administration has contacted the Kim regime several times to initiate new negotiations after talks fell through during the Trump era. But Kim Jong Un rejected the rapprochement and is unlikely to give the green light to serious negotiating efforts as long as US policy is aimed at the total and irreversible denuclearization of North Korea.
South Korea, which acted as a facilitator of direct diplomacy between the US and North Korea during Moon Jae-in’s presidency, is no longer seen by North Koreans as a credible interlocutor due to President Yoon’s crackdown on Pyongyang. (North Korea even ignored daily military-to-military calls from the South for nearly two weeks.)
In an ideal world, China would exploit its considerable financial and political leverage over North Korea to help Washington bring the Kim regime to the negotiating table. Yet, given the appalling state of US-China relations, Beijing has little incentive to help Washington over a foreign policy dispute that has baffled multiple US administrations for decades.
Additional economic pressures are unlikely to bring Kim to the table either. The UN Security Council has been mired in the North Korean nuclear issue since 2017, with the United States and China arguing over who is to blame. Permanent members Russia and China use their veto power to block individual sanction designations, and the prospect of a new UN Security Council sanctions resolution being passed is too low to even theorize.
Beijing and Moscow increasingly view the sanctions as exacerbating North Korea’s internal food crisis and economic crisis and should therefore be relaxed or lifted. The United States found out the hard way when it introduced a draft resolution in May 2022, but walked out of the council chamber in disappointment after the Russian and Chinese delegations a double veto.
Even if the North Koreans were to conduct another nuclear test, there is no guarantee that the Security Council would be able to muster the unanimity needed to issue a statement condemning it.
With the UN paralyzed, the Biden administration has since relied on unilateral sanctions designations to punish North Korea for everything from illegal financial practices And smuggle fuel Unpleasant the development of weapons of mass destruction and human rights violations. Yet the North Koreans have necessarily proven to be meticulous sanction evaders.
Washington is therefore left with a short list of options. Continuing to strengthen the sanctions regime is the most likely course of action, if only out of bureaucratic habit, but it is by definition highly reactive to North Korean behavior and has little chance of success.
Maintaining the current pace of US military deployment in East Asia will be welcomed by Seoul and Tokyo, but also risks further North Korean missile tests and military exercises – up to and including a seventh underground nuclear test.
Promoting detente between the two Koreas is likely to be a dead end as long as the Yoon government’s hard line continues.
The North Korean nuclear issue is a low priority for the Biden administration. The United States is currently content to tread water and wait for the Kim regime to accept its overtures.
Assuming Washington wants to solve or at least contain the problem, it is time for a major policy change. The most dramatic shift would be for the United States and its allies to recognize that denuclearization is unfeasible when North Korea already possesses dozens of nuclear warheads, is likely to build more, and is in the process of diversifying its delivery systems.
Avoiding war through a mix of deterrence, engagement, and practical diplomacy should now be the primary goal of US national security on the Korean Peninsula, not turning North Korea into a non-nuclear state.
If the United States intends to maintain a consistently high pace of military exercises with South Korea, Washington must establish protocols to minimize confusion and mixed signals with North Korea.
This likely requires direct communication between US and North Korean military officers and perhaps sophisticated, mutual notifications about the timing and location of various military and missile exercises to reduce misconceptions.
In addition, the United States, in coordination with China, should be willing to exchange basic nuclear safety and maintenance information with North Korea. The fact that the United States is highly unlikely to recognize North Korea as a legitimate nuclear-armed state does not negate the need to ensure that Pyongyang’s nuclear practices are up to standard.
The United States should also stop predicting the involvement of the US and North Korea alone on the nuclear issue. Maintaining a cold peace on the Korean peninsula involves discussions beyond the nuclear component, including, but not limited to, the deployment of conventional forces on both sides of the 240-mile demilitarized zone, de-escalation mechanisms between the two Koreas and common rules of engagement along disputed boundaries such as the Northern Limit Line.
An effective strategy can only be formulated if realistic, achievable goals are set.
Daniel R. DePetris (an.depetris@defp.or) is a fellow at Defense Priorities, a foreign policy think tank based in Washington, DC, a foreign affairs columnist at the Chicago Tribune, and a foreign policy writer for Newsweek. Follow him on Twitter @DanDePetris.
This article was originally published by Pacific Forum. Global Courant republishes it with permission.
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