[보도] Readjusting South Korean-U.S. strategic alliance

South Korea is at a crossroads of its future strategic direction and needs to make a tactical determination in the next five years regarding how to maintain its alliance with the United States, security experts here say.
These experts provided mixed evaluations of the wide range of transformations in the alliance conducted over the last five years, but agreed that the destiny of the half-century-old Seoul-Washington military alliance remains open.

Some say the alliance has entered the course of gradual dissolution, while others contend that the Seoul-Washington tie will settle into a new shape suitable for the 21st century security environment despite occasional friction.

"The alliance lies at a crossroads now for its future course. The current situation will continue for the next three-to-five years. The destiny of the alliance will be largely dependent upon the decisions and measures that will be made during the period," Cha Du-hyeon, a research fellow at the state-run think tank Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, told The Korea Herald.

"A significant change is inevitable in the alliance, and Seoul should decide what the alliance will be like," Cha said.

Origins of alliance transformation

Since 2003, Seoul and Washington have been engaged in the transformation of their half-century-old military alliance to cope with a variety of security needs arising in the new century.

The transformation began when the U.S. changed its worldwide defense posture after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

"It began in line with the U.S. initiative spurred by its full-scale changes in global military strategy. The new U.S. military strategy was reflected in its Northeast Asian strategy and finally in the South Korea-U.S. alliance," said Lee Sang-hyun, director of security studies at the Sejong Institute, a civilian think tank.

In the wake of the historically rare attacks on its homeland, the United States redefined the security environment worldwide and rearranged its military forces such that they became more mobile and deployable to deal with global terrorists and regional conflicts. The U.S. transformed its military structure and realigned troop deployment with consultations with allies.

The new U.S. initiative necessitated a ground-breaking change in the South Korean-U.S. alliance which has successfully deterred North Korean aggression for longer than 50 years.

The need for change was also echoed in Seoul with the inauguration of President Roh Moo-hyun, who has sought a self-reliant defense capability for South Korea.

When President Roh took office in 2003, however, the country was engulfed by anti-Americanism triggered by the deaths of two school girls killed by a U.S. military vehicle.

In summer 2002, an engineer vehicle that belonged to the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division ran over the Korean girls during a typical road march, failing to see them walking near the vehicle. Accusations followed against U.S. soldiers within the vehicle, but a U.S. military court released them, ruling that they were not guilty.

South Koreans were enraged by the decision made under exclusion of South Korean legal jurisdiction. Under the Status of Forces Agreement that regulates the legal and administrative status of U.S. soldiers in Korea, Seoul conceded large portions of its right to the U.S. military, permitting it to judge American soldiers who had committed crimes in South Korea.

South Koreans protested the "imbalanced" SOFA regulations and called for a revision of the "unfair" treaty. Through the rest of 2002, thousands of South Korean people staged candlelight vigils, demanding "proper punishments" for the U.S. soldiers involved in the killing.

Anti-U.S. sentiment also affected the process of the 2002 presidential election and finally contributed in some extent to the election of Roh Moo-hyun, who supported policies more independent from Washington.

Together with the anti-U.S. sentiment in South Korea, the Roh administration's self-reliant policies brewed tension with Washington over the future course of the Seoul government's dealings with North Korea. Such tension conversely triggered anti-Korean sentiment in the United States. The allies began losing trust in each other, but Washington hurried to embark on the alliance transformation to meet its new global security plan.

"Such a turn of events, along with the Roh administration's undiplomatic rhetoric harmed trust between both sides. It partly affected the negotiation process, which was not smooth and thus brought about high tension between the allies," Lee Sang-hyun said.

In 2003, the allies launched a series of bilateral talks to restructure their military alliance, then heavily dependent on the U.S. military in terms of division of roles as it was fitted to the Cold War security environment. The bilateral consultative meeting was named "Future of ROK-U.S. Alliance Policy Initiative (FOTA)." U.S. troop realignment and security concerns

During the FOTA talks, the United States expressed that it wanted to relocate its troops, deployed near the Demilitarized Zone, to the south of Seoul.

U.S. Forces Korea had maintained troops responsible for guard missions at the Joint Security Area in the border village of Panmunjeom. It had also stationed 2nd Infantry Division troops on the peninsula's western corridor route from Panmunjeom to Seoul to function as a "tripwire." According to this "tripwire" function, the deployment of U.S. troops on the corridor would ensure U.S. involvement in a war initiated by North Korea; North Korean troops would have to hit the U.S. troops first en route to attacking Seoul.

The U.S. plan to redeploy its troops away from the DMZ was based on the U.S. military's new emphasis on mobility and high technology under its anti-terror strategy established after the 9/11 attacks.

"The U.S. administration was taking concrete steps to transform the 37,000-strong USFK to a regional defense force in Northeast Asia to be combined with the U.S. Forces in Japan. The next step would be the establishment of a regional command in the region to operate the army and air force units of the USFK and the naval and marine forces of the USFJ," said Cho Seong-ryoul, director of the Institute for National Security Strategy, affiliated to the National Intelligence Service.

Ending their "tripwire" role on the Korean Peninsula, a rather static function, the U.S. forces far to the south of Seoul could exercise increased mobility in the future, ready to be deployed to other parts of the region to meet strategic needs, Cho said.

This, in effect, could be considered a serious deviation from the original mission of the USFK under the 1953 Korea-U.S. Mutual Defense Treaty, which allowed the stationing of U.S. troops here to defend the Republic of Korea from external aggression.

Washington also wanted to transfer 10 defense missions to Seoul not only to make its forces more expedient, but also to increase Korea's role in the defense of itself. The military functions South Koreans would assume between 2004 and 2006 included patrol duties at the Joint Security Area; decontamination missions for chemical, biological or nuclear weapons; the laying of land mines; and counter-artillery operations.

In 2004, the United States also notified South Korea of a plan that it would reduce its troops from 37,000 to 25,000. Washington decided to redeploy 3,600 soldiers from the peninsula to Iraq as soon as was possible. Accordingly, one combat brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division permanently withdrew from Korea in 2004.

The U.S. demands immediately raised concerns among South Koreans that the U.S. retreat from the frontline could cause a security vacuum in South Korea. People believed the U.S. plans were stemming from Americans' anti-Korean sentiment and worried that the alliance had been severely damaged by the Roh administration's friction with Washington.

On urgent calls, Seoul asked Washington to leave in place key U.S. weaponry until it built up its own self-reliant defense posture. To compensate for the loss of combat capability, the U.S. military pledged to upgrade its force structure and capability.

"It was a matter of tempo. South Koreans were not prepared for the rapid changes," said Kim Il-young, politics professor at Sungkyunkwan University.

In 2004, Seoul and Washington agreed to consolidate 41 U.S. bases on the peninsula into 10 bases in two hub regions of Osan-Pyeongtaek and Daegu-Pohang.

Under the plan, the U.S. Forces Korea will relocate the Yongsan Garrison in downtown Seoul, along with the 2nd Infantry Division near the border with North Korea, to Pyeongtaek, 70 kilometers south of Seoul. Pyeongtaek will be home to the U.S. military's main base in Korea by around 2012.

South Korean troops took over patrol duties in late 2004 from the American-led United Nations Command at a guard post at the Joint Security Area in the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone. The takeover of the JSA patrols was one of the 10 specific military responsibilities which the U.S. Forces Korea was slated to hand over to South Korean troops.

The event marked Korean troops taking virtually complete responsibility for patrolling the 4-kilometer-wide, 248-kilometer-long land border with North Korea for the first time since the Korean War Armistice was signed in 1953.

Among other duties handed to South Korean forces included artillery units near the buffer border to counter any North Korean artillery fire. North Korea maintains 1,000 sets of 170-milimeter long-range artillery and 170-millimeter self-propelled artillery and 240-millimeter multiple rocket launchers deployed on the frontline.

Also included was a maritime protection measure against any infiltration by the North via sea routes. A U.S. aviation brigade with AH-64 Apache helicopters had assumed the missions of patrolling the sea routes.

Transition of wartime operational control and self-reliance

Earlier this year, South Korea and the United States agreed to transfer wartime operational control of South Korean troops from Washington to Seoul on April 17, 2012. Seoul and Washington have already decided to disband their consolidated Combined Forces Command as Seoul seeks to regain wartime control.

Seoul voluntarily put operational control of its military under the U.S.-led U.N. Command shortly after the Korean War broke out in 1950. It took back peacetime operational control of its forces in 1994.

But the negotiations have widely sparked concerns here over the U.S.'s slackening security commitment on the peninsula in the future.

"During the negotiations, Washington showed inconsistent responses to the South Korean government's abruptly expediting pushes for wartime operational control. The U.S. government was seen to be perplexed a bit, which further fuelled South Koreans' concerns over the alliance's future," said Lee Choon-kun, a security expert and vice president of the Seoul-based think tank Center for Free Enterprise.

President Roh Moo-hyun's self-reliant initiative at times has garnered ample support from his core political constituencies. However, the policy has often spurred inner conflicts in South Korea over security and ideology.

Last year, the government and former military leaders clashed over the proposed change in wartime command as the dispute ran the gamut of issues from legal procedures, defense costs and warfare capability to the possible impact on the Korea-U.S. alliance.

A group of 26 top veterans, including 17 former defense ministers and other conservative groups, called on the government to suspend its efforts to regain wartime operational control of its military from the United States. They called on the government to seek national consensus in the form of parliamentary approval for the plan, given its significance in the nation's security.

"The command transfer would weaken the nation's deterrence against North Korea and its half-century alliance with the United States," the groups said in a joint statement.

However, the government and progressive groups rejected their demand, sticking to the transfer of control.

"The regaining of wartime command is to recover from restraints imposed on our sovereignty," said Song Min-soon, the then-president's chief aide for national security.

Lee Sang-hyun said the administration's unsophisticated rhetoric that focused national pride and sovereignty formed a misleading appearance of confrontation between Seoul and Washington over the operational control issue.

"It in part contributed the gradual weakening of the alliance," Lee said.

South Korea and the United States plan to set up a new joint military structure by 2009 as part of preparations for the planned transfer of wartime operational control.

In accordance with the timeframe, the allies will establish a new joint military coordination system by 2009 to replace the current Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command. The Alliance Military Coordination Center (AMCC) will link the two separate commands of the Korean and U.S. troops with its six subordinate institutions. The six institutions will cover joint operational planning, information sharing, crisis management, joint military exercises, combat tactics development and logistics support.

Under the new alliance system, ground and naval forces operations will be led by the Korean military, while the United States will provide aerial-centric support to the Korean troops. The alliance's air forces will create a combined air and space operation center to enhance joint command for U.S.-led aerial operations in wartime.

By 2009, the two countries will also repeal the allies' combined war scenario, codenamed OPLAN 5027, and draw up a new war plan designed for independent operations of the two militaries.

Under the OPLAN 5027, if hostilities break out, the United States will deploy up to 690,000 troops, 160 vessels and 2,000 aircraft to the peninsula, in addition to the current troops, which number about 29,000, to remove the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and defeat his 1.17-million-member military. Korean military experts say the new war scenario will mainly aim to depose the North's core leaders and neutralize its main war-fighting installations.

After initial implementation, the allies will conduct five joint military exercises between 2010 and 2012 to adapt themselves to the new alliance structure.

Evolution or dissolution The five-year transition has been highlighted by much of the friction in the South Korea-U.S. relationship, mainly due to lack of understanding on each other's policy direction and differences over threat perceptions against North Korea, experts say.

Many experts say the recurrent tension in the alliance relations has eroded the underpinnings of the alliance, leading it adrift, and benefiting neither country's interests.

"It is evident that the South Korea-U.S. alliance is weakening. The alliance in itself had imposed the two countries responsibilities for each other on the basis of the 'blood-born alliance' spirit, but it is shrinking to one under which responsibility to the other partner is optional," said Lee Sang-hyun.

Lee Choon-Kun agreed that the alliance has crossed the "Rubicon" for a dismantling.

"The alliance has entered the way of dissolution. The alliance transition is only a facet of the process," he said. "It is because Seoul and Washington differ over how to view North Korea." Meanwhile, the Seoul government praises the alliance transformation as a successful event that laid the groundwork for the sustainable alliance for the new century. It evaluates the recent changes the alliance has achieved as a transition to a "horizontal alliance" and as a strengthening of Korea's autonomy for national defense.

Government officials say that through the transformation, the alliance has shifted to a more balanced shape that serves both nations' national interests and defense strategies.

"I agree that negotiations on technical matters were successful. But, broadly speaking, the negotiation process was not smooth and filled with mistrust," Lee Sang-hyun said.

Disagreement over how best to transform North Korea has led the two countries to adopt different policy approaches to the North.

After the 9/11 terrorist attack, Washington defined both terrorism and the spread of weapons of mass destruction as threats to its national security. Under this definition, North Korea - which is pursuing nuclear weapons - was hence considered a threat to the United States. However, South Korea doesn't share the same threat perception as the United States. Most South Koreans view the Pyongyang regime with more pity than fear. In addition, Seoul also denies branding China as an enemy while Washington is wary of the rise of China as a regional power.

"The rift has originated from the widening gap in the threat perceptions toward North Korea," said Kim Il-young.

"However, it is unlikely that Seoul and Washington will disband their military ties. It is nothing new for allies, even for allies with a history of shared sacrifice like South Korea and United States, to disagree. The future of the alliance depends on strategic decisions of both nations," Kim said.

By Jin Dae-woong (davidpooh@heraldm.com)