No Balance, No Net: Anything Could Happen During the Roh-Bush Meeting

If you have any questions about the state of U.S.-South Korean relations today, you need only read this.

Seoul and Washington have decided not to adopt a joint statement or declaration at the Roh-Bush summit.

Contrast that to the scripted appearances and affirmations of unity we saw last time. No longer. This visit was hurriedly scheduled after North Korea’s missile launches, which showed everyone just how little security seven billion dollars could purchase, and after which the United States broke sharply with the South Korean approach to the North. Reports now suggest that an announcement of U.S. sanctions is imminent, following a concerted Treasury Department effort to cut the financial lifelines to North Korea’s regime-sustaining economy. As a result, one of the most-watched meetings will be between Roh and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. John Bolton’s surprising victory on U.N. Security Council Resolution 1695 seems set to play a significant role in the U.S. effort.

The other object of speculation: rumors that the American government will rapidly downgrade its military contribution to the protection of a South Korean government that has, in effect, declared itself a neutral power, failed to protect U.S. personnel (including its ambassador) and installations from violent anti-American leftists, made common cause with those extremists’ basest hatreds, publicly insulted the American President and his policies, and consistently frustrated U.S. foreign policy objectives. The Pentagon’s plans have shattered the illusion, once widely held among Koreans, that South Korea was indispensable to U.S. foreign policy in the region.

For members of the twin Korean and American establishments that have grown up around the U.S.-Korean alliance, the absence of public appearances, statements, and news reports must be ominous (one wonders what counsel they offered Roh as he brought us to this point). In ordinary circumstances, especially in the presence of this kind of speculation, such statements would form a reassuring safety net below which relations between the two nations could not fall. Having proven the ineptness of his balancing act, Roh now works without a net.