The Death of an Alliance, Part 48: Rumsfeld’s Rules

A big welcome to the new readers from Gateway Pundit, and as always, many thanks to Jim for his link and his support.

Update: Yonhap reports that “60 former defense ministers, chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Army, Air Force and Navy chiefs” will step forward to oppose the command transfer. They want a word with Roh before he visits the White House next month. The Washington Post picks up the story, and gets it about right:

Roh’s populist rhetoric aside, what has really scared the gaggle of retired generals are indications that the Pentagon may be just as eager to see the switch.

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Next Thursday, we’ll find out whether the new anti-ballistic interceptors will ever be able to shoot down a Taepodong, should the need or excuse arise. Yesterday, Donald Rumsfeld stopped by the system’s nerve center at Ft. Greely, Alaska, I suppose to offer gentle, comforting words, hand out cocoa with marshmallows, and help everyone to relax and think about fluffy bunnies:

[O]n Thursday an interceptor based at a second launch site, at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., is scheduled to be tested against a target missile launched into the Pacific from Alaska’s Kodiak Island. That will be the first full-up test of the latest version of the interceptor and its “kill vehicle,” a device attached to the nose of the interceptor. Once it separates from the interceptor’s three-stage booster, the “kill vehicle” is designed to use its own propulsion system and optical sensors to lock onto its target and, by ramming into it at high speed, obliterate the warhead and any payload it might carry.

Thursday’s test also will be the first use of an early-warning radar at Beale Air Force Base, Calif., to provide the data required to put the interceptor on a proper path toward its target. The interceptor will be controlled from a command center near Colorado Springs, Colo. Fort Greely has a similar command center.

[Lt. Gen. Henry] Obering said the main objective of Thursday’s test will be to see if the optical sensors on the “kill vehicle” aboard the interceptor work as designed. Whether it actually intercepts the target is secondary, he said. A further test, now scheduled for December, will try for an intercept, Obering said.

By now, you’ve probably figured out that this system wasn’t just designed to protect us from that maniacal “home rule” rogue, Carolyn Floyd. Good thing. This is a blog about Korea, after all.

At a news conference, Rumsfeld said that North Korea’s leaders showed, by their test-launch of multiple missiles on July 4, a determination to “continue to improve their capability and to threaten and attempt to blackmail other people.” He said they also are a threat to spread missile technology to terrorists.

“I think the real threat that North Korea poses in the immediate future is more one of proliferation than a danger to South Korea,” he said. Asked to elaborate on that point, Rumsfeld said U.S. intelligence about the intentions of North Korean leaders is not very good, but he said it is clear that the overall condition of the North Korean military has deteriorated. He mentioned that North Korean air force pilots are able to fly fewer than 50 hours a year — less than one-quarter the training done by U.S. pilots.

“I don’t see them, frankly, as an immediate military threat to South Korea,” he said.

If you parse those words carefully, you will hear Secretary Rumsfeld describing how North Korea poses a threat to the United States. He is unshouldering the heavy burden of defending every legacy protectorate on Earth, no matter how far its interests have diverged from our own. This is the new un-unconditional reality of the U.S.-South Korean security relationship, a relationship that has been irreversibly altered by the neutralism and appeasement of the anti-American administration of President Roh Moo-Hyun since his razor-thin election in 2002. The United States was willing, to a point, to defend South Korea against a regime the latter sustains. It is not willing to support a state that perpetuates direct threats to the United States itself. Rumsfeld wanted to be extra sure that the message was received clearly by its intended recipient, so he sent him a letter:

U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has sent a letter to his South Korean counterpart Yoon Kwang-ung saying that the United States would like to return the wartime operational control of South Korea’s armed forces by as early as 2009, sources here said Sunday.

[….]

“Rumsfeld said in his letter to Yoon in mid-August that it is reasonable to hand over the operational control to South Korea in 2009 considering the timing of moving the USFK Seoul base to Pyeongtaek and the proposed dissolution of the command of U.S.-South Korea Combined Forces,” a Korean government source said on condition of anonymity. It is first time that the U.S. secretary has suggested 2009 as the target year for the transfer of the wartime operational control. However, South Korea has proposed the transfer occur in 2012, citing the need for more time to become defensively self-reliant.

The Reckoning

For a long time, I’ve been talking about the “death” of the alliance, and now that it’s pretty much coming to pass, I suppose it’s now incumbent on me to say that’s also a bit more complex than that (hey, you can only get so many words in a post title, and it’s catchy). This is a point that my colleague Richardson has already made (no, not the part about it being catchy). I agree with Richardson in general, if not in every detail, or in every political contingency. The alliance probably isn’t going away overnight, nor do I think it should. On the other hand, I don’t believe that the alliance as it was during the Cold War is long for this world, nor should it be. The ground component of the USFK will be dramatically smaller. Its mission will be reduced to protecting any air and naval forces that remain in Korea, which will be the key U.S. contribution to the defense of South Korea. South Korea will need that support for decades; its own own air and missile defenses are antiquated, and can’t be replaced without astronomical cost that will greatly outlive this current Korean administration [Update: more]. The Cold War is over, and Korea is effectively exercising an option that history has not previously presented it: to ask an occupying force to leave with a completely realistic expectation that its request will be cheerfully granted.

But I’ve already taken stock of the cost of that for Korea, and I believe that when Korea does, it will realize that it needs U.S. intelligence, air cover, and missile defenses. By providing those key components of South Korea’s defense, the United States will preserve most of its influence in Korea while reducing the unacceptable risk of having thousands of soldiers within North Korean artillery range.

The fact that it makes perfect sense isn’t the end of the story, however. In democratic societies, military postures are subservient to political trends and well as military threats. The majority of Korean society would have agreed with such a request just last year, but probably wouldn’t today. What this means for Korean society and politics is a national conversation about threats, and weighing costs and benefits. We should celebrate the fact that this conversation can finally be heard through the noise about pride, blame, and ancient slights. And of course, much of that noise came in the form of the basest, lowest, and least justifiable forms of hatred imaginable. Blogs like this one and its predecessors (credited but not not linked at this A-Times article) played a significant role in telling the American people about how their soldiers were the object of that bile, and that message eventually cost Korea friends in Washington. We can hope that one way or another, our soldiers will be on the receiving end of much less of this. Koreans and Americans alike should hope that this reckoning brings about responsible adult leadership and competent statecraft. No matter where good military and diplomatic sense may lie, they will be meaningless without the backing of solid political support.

The Debate

Why the U.S. urgency to hand over control? The Chosun Ilbo quotes a Korean official who suggests that this is America’s vindictive way of forcing the issue into the public debate at the Korean government’s expense:

A Korean source quoted a U.S. official as saying in recent bilateral discussions that Korea will not realistically be ready to exercise independent control of its forces even by 2012, but since that deadline appeared to be politically motivated, there was no reason for Washington to cling to military logic either.

This is actually plausible, in addition to being a good idea. If the alliance is a bigger issue than the immediate interests of the unpopular party that rules Korea for one more year, then that party ought to bear as much of the political burden for its own bad planning as possible. The time for Koreans to think about what form the alliance will ultimately take (if any) is while they’re thinking about who their next president will be. In this limited goal, we’ve been successful in focusing minds. There is near panic in the Korean defense establishment, which doesn’t believe that Korea can afford the shock of assuming the burden of these expenses and responsibilities so quickly. The opposition Grand National Party has called for halting plans to take back wartime control, although this seems more of a reaction than an alternative. Recently, thirteen former defense ministers joined in a rare public statement of opposition to the handover of wartime control. Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-Ung had dismissed those worries, but at the time, he was still trying to calm skeptics by assuring them that Korea would be ready for wartime command by 2012.

Timing isn’t the only unresolved issue. The Pentagon recently confirmed reports that the United States will reduce its total forces below the level of 25,000, to which they were to be reduced by 2008 (compared to 37,000 in 2004). It bears repeating that in 2004, about 25,000 of the American service members in Korea were Army, with the most of the rest being Air Force. If most force cuts continue to come from the Army component, it will have roughly 12,000 troops in Korea in 2008, about half of the 2004 level. Of those 12,000, relatively few will be infantry, armor, or artillery, and it seems unlikely that the Eighth Army, if it remains, will be worthy of its name. An unidentified Korean defense official later denied a rumor that all U.S. ground forces would soon leave Korea. At the same time, USFK was publicly threatening to remove U.S. air forces from Korea if the Korean government doesn’t find them a new training range. If the air forces leave, the ground forces will have no air cover and will also be withdrawn. The issue remains unresolved. Meanwhile, the Pentagon is quietly proceeding with plans to expand its facilities in Hawaii. The Pentagon denied the move is connected to Korea, but previous reports suggest otherwise.

The third unresolved issue is cost-sharing, one that has been highly controversial for years. Secretary Rumsfeld’s letter demanded that Korea raise its share from 40% to 50%, a demand that follows a failure by the two sides to agree after acrimonious talks.

The Future

What does this mean? It means that we today may not recognize the USFK that will exist five years from now. This transformation could end with a complete dissolution of the alliance, and almost certainly will if men who share the world view of Roh Moo Hyun ascend to power in 2007. This probably will not happen unless there’s an abortive military coup first, however.

What is more likely is that South Korea will continue a healthy trend that has now begun: a national debate about Korea’s relationship with America, the sort of reckoning I’ve been calling for since the early days of my blogging at OneFreeKorea. Because of Roh, though not for the reasons or emotions that drove his policies, and certainly not under the leadership of his supporters, there will be a new, better, healthier U.S.-Korean relationship, in which Korea will bear the cost of playing a more equal role. It will begin with the reduction of the present alliance from an anachronistic political liability to a calibrated, flexible supporting force that will be available to support South Korean interests, so long as they coincide with American interests.

What will the new relationship look like? I propose a few models in declining order of plausibility:

1. The Israel Model: U.S. forces leave Korea, but continue giving it substantial assistance aimed toward a robust, independent self defense. This would require much larger capital and human investments by the South Koreans and an expansion of the South Korean reserves.

2. The Thailand Model (circa 1970’s): U.S. ground forces leave, except for regular exercises and relatively small units. A robust air component remains. This was sufficient to deter Vietnam at its apex after the fall of Saigon, Luang Prabang, and Phnom Penh.

3. The Taiwan Model: U.S. forces leave, U.S. assistance is tightly restricted, and the nation’s government, placing its faith in trade with its foes and hopes of an American rescue, allows its defense to gradually decline to a point of vulnerability.

4. The Saudi Model. U.S. forces, including large numbers of ground forces, remain to protect an increasingly hostile population, whose government refuses to spend political capital to explain the reasons for the U.S. presence. That hostility finds increasingly violent expression until the U.S. government tires of the commitment and withdraws suddenly, forcing even normal trade and diplomatic relations to operate discreetly, outside the view of two populations who deeply despise one another.

5. The Finland Model. After U.S. forces leave, the nation gradually disarms and comes under the domination of strong neighboring dictatorships.

6. Kim Il Sung City: U.S. forces leave, the alliance is abrogated, and a “Coalitionist” government, influenced and infiltrated by the competeting tyrannical system, gradually cedes control to it.

7. Terminator V: U.S. forces leave Korea. Korea, with a declining human population, turns to a new race of super-intelligent warrior robots, programmed with nihilistic tendencies by a vengeful Dr. Hwang Woo-Suk. The robots, backed by their own robot air force, then conquer and subjugate both Koreas, except for a small band of ultra-nationalists on Tokdo. This band successfully defends Tokdo against the robot invasion, but starves to death a few weeks later because Tokdo is, after all, just a couple of godforsaken barren rocks.

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For so many years, the United States has been the all-purpose (a) benefactor, (b) defender, and (c) scapegoat that has protected an economically strong, yet politically immature nation from making sound security decisions against a background of the hard reality that surrounds it. With a new presidential election coming, the best thing the United States could do for its own long-term interests would be to help Korean voters perceive those realities and the interests they realistically share with the United States. If Korean voters are capable of perceiving those interests, they will elect responsible statesmen who will sit down with U.S. defense planners to draw up an updated plan for an alliance that fits modern realities. If not, what makes sense won’t matter, and political pressures for a total U.S. withdrawal and a complete abrogation of the alliance will reach tipping points in both the United States and Korea.
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