- Historian Donald Kagan captures this perfectly when he writes,”…the one great truth of history is that there is always one other possibility besides all the ones that you imagine, no matter how clever you are. What usually happens in history is in the category of “none of the above.” If one examines the predictions made in the area of international relations over the centuries, most of the time, most of the people get it wrong—even the most learned, experienced and intelligent people.” Survival, The IISS Quarterly, Summer 1999, p. 142. Robert G. Kaiser also makes this point in, “Ten Years later, It's Obvious That Nothing at All Was Obvious,” Washington Post, Novemer 7, 1999, p. B1. Kaiser examines the inaccurate predictions made by experts shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall to illustrate just how intellectually hazardous prognostication can be.
- A presentation made by Dr. Harry Harding to the Asian Affairs Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, November 1, 2000, cited in Notes from the National Committee on US-China Relations, Vol. 29, No. 1 (Spring/Summer 2000).
- For president Roh's statements on seven years author's recollection from the period as Director of the East Asia and Pacific Region Office of the Secretary of Defense's staff (OSD/ISA). John Deutch, Director of Central Intelligence, testimony before Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, February 22, 1996. Larry Niksch, “The Prospect of Relations between the United States and North Korea Beyond the 1994 Nuclear Accord,” a paper presented at the Annual International Security Symposium of the Korean National Defense University, Seoul, August 1996.
- A good brief summary is found in Robert A. Manning and James J. Przystup, “Asia's Transition Diplomacy: Hedging Against Futureshocks,” Survival, The IISS Quarterly, Autumn 1999. Also, Robert Scalapino, “The Role of Unified Korea in Northeast Asia,” a paper prepared for a conference on Restructuring the Korean Peninsula for the 21st Century, Seoul, September 29–30, 1998. Narushige Michishita, “Regional Aspects of Korean Unification—Focusing on Strategic Issues,” a paper prepared for the EU Policy Seminar, Brussels, Belgium, October 13, 1998. Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives (New York: Basic Books, 1997), p. 190. William Drennan, “Prospects and Implications of Korean Reunification,” Northeast Asia Peace and Security Network(NAPSNET), No. 9, August 22, 1997.
- The military implications of each of these scenarios. Today the ROK military is overwhelmingly Army dominated and ground force heavy. This is not surprising given the experience of invasion from the North in 1950, and since the armistice, the subsequent threat of invasion. Not only is this logical, it has been the advice of a parade of US Army four-star commanders; again for a good reason. First, as the overall commanders of the ROK-US forces these officers understood that the capability of the ROK Army would determine their success or failure in the defense of South Korea if another war broke out. A second reason is because US strategists and policy makers believed—as they do today—that it was entirely appropriate for the ROK Army to bear the brunt of the fighting in the defense of their country. In the decades immediately after the Korean War, the issue was not whether the ROK Army should do this, but whether they could do it. Today there is no question that the ROK Army will and can perform this mission. For its part, the United States has over time agreed to offset the obvious capabilities imbalance in the ROK military establishment by providing the lion's share of the air and sea power necessary to defend Korea.The ROK Navy is still more of a coastal defense force than a force capable of conducting sea control in the area around Korea, although it is gradually, as funds permit, expanding its open ocean capability. Similarly, the ROK Air Force is oriented to air defense and close air support—although it is in the middle of a major F-16 upgrade—the bulk of their tactical fighters are Vietnam War vintage F-4's and F-5's. For all practical purposes the US Air Force is Korea's long-range strike and interdiction force, and the US Seventh Fleet is the ROK's sea-lane and regional protection and projection force. To US planners this represents a reasonable division of labor.In Seoul, however, once the idea of reunification became common place, military planners began to wrestle with post reunification scenarios and it became clear to them that a reunified Korea would face the major powers in the region with a military that was too army heavy. As a result, over the last ten years or so the ROK Joint Chiefs of Staff and Ministry of National Defense have been so confident about their ability to defeat a North Korean invasion that they have begun to divert defense dollars to improving the ROK Navy and Air Force. This diversion was over the objections made by US commanders who worried that the ROK planners were too blase about the North Korean threat. This point is raised not to enter the debate over whether this is a wise course of action or not. Rather, it is to highlight the fact that ROK planners recognize that if a reunited Korea elects to pursue a national security strategy of “strategic independence,” it will require greater long-term investment in air and sea power while maintaining a sizable army. (They will share a frontier with China.) Other national security strategic options put less pressure on the defense budget because of alliances or friendships.When addressing post-unification scenarios, analysts often assume that a strategically independent Korea will require nuclear weapons. It is not entirely clear to me why this is so. There is no reason to believe that a reunified Korea, even if it inherits intact whatever capability the North possesses, would elect to “go nuclear” with the attendant international opprobrium associated with renouncing the NPT unless an incredibly hostile environment confronted Seoul. That does not seem likely. There is no reason to believe that Seoul's efforts to maintain good relations with all of their neighbors will not continue to be the primary objective of their foreign policy. Unlike Israel's neighbors of just a few years ago, Korea's neighbors do not seem inclined to make the destruction of the unified Korean state an avowed goal. There are no irredentist claims against Korea, Japan does not hunger for a new Korean colony. China is not interested in absorbing Korea. Russia does not seek a Korean sphere of influence. The quickest way to undermine and possibly lose US support for a reunited Korea would be for Korea to become a nuclear power. Korea would appear to have more to lose than gain by pursuing the nuclear option.Finally, should things turn bad they have the resources available to quickly become a nuclear weapon state. More important than a possible nuclear inheritance from the North, a reunited Korea will have in hand the missile technology necessary to translate nuclear options into credible delivery systems in short order.
- Ibid. pp. 13–14.
- Mary Jordan, “Second Guessing Korean Unification,” Washington Post, March 4, 1997, p. A01.
- Kim Dae-jung, “Images and Realities of Korean Unity,” Policy Towards North Korea for Peace, Reconciliation and Cooperation, Ministry of Unification, Republic of Korea, 1999, p. 15.
- Scott Snyder, “North Korea's Decline and China's Strategic Dilemmas,” U.S. Institute of Peace Special Report (October 1997), pp. 7–9.
- Referring to the behavior of North Korea, the unclassified version of the Perry Report says, “…many aspects of its behavior will remain reprehensible to us even if embark on the negotiating process.” William J. Perry, “Review of United States Policy Toward North Korea: Findings and Recommendations,” October 12, 1999, NAPSNET Special Report, October 13,1999.
- Interview with a Japanese official in July 1999.
- Sergei Grigoriev, “How the Korean-US Security Alliance is Viewed by the Russians,” a paper presented at the 14th Annual Conference of The Council on U.S. Korean Security Studies, Arlington, Virginia, October 28–29, 1999. Herb Ellison, “Russia, Korea, and Northeast Asia,” a draft paper prepared for NBR Project: Korean Reunification and the American National Interest: Contingencies and Implications for Policy, October 1999, p. 12.
- Michael Armacost and Kenneth Pile, “Japan and the Unification of Korea: Challenges for U.S. Policy Coordination,” National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR) Analysis, Vol. 10, No. 1, March 1999, p. 29.
- Pollack , Jonathan and Koo Cha , Young . 1995 . A New Alliance for the Next Century: The Future of U.S'.-Korean Security Cooperation Santa Monica : RAND . See for example the excellent 1995 Rand study, (Another example is Jonathan Pollack and Chung Min Lee, Preparing for Korean Unification (Santa Monica: RAND 1999), p. 55. The authors write,”…the peaceful unification scenario also assumes that the North will choose to drop its decade-long demand for the withdrawal of US forces from the ROK, and that the two Koreas will be able to come to terms with respect to the deployment of US forces after unification. The other alternative, that the ROK might be forced to sacrifice US presence for reunification receives one sentence and no further analysis. Conversely, a unified Korean government could decide to terminate all US military deployments on the peninsula, or agree to a substantially smaller US presence.”
- Kim Hyoung-min, “Kim calls for Continued Presence of US Forces After Reunification,” Korea Times, January 23, 1998.
- The definitive work on negotiating with North Korea is Chuck Downs, “Over the Line: North Korea's Negotiating Strategy,” The AEI Press, 1999.
- A recent example was a bilateral (US-Chinese) conference held in Shanghai in May 1999. Co-sponsored by Pacific Forum-CSIS and Fudan University the conference topic was “Asian Security: Looking Forward to the 21st Century.” Chinese participants included members from Beijing think-tanks (CICIR and Chinese Academy of Social Sciences). The Chinese view was that following unification Beijing wants a non-aligned “neutral” Korea. They believe that the process of reunification will result in the withdrawal of US forces.
- Taylor , William J. 1998 . Great Power Interests in Korean Unification 12 Washington DC : CSIS .
- Robert Scalapino, “The role of a Unified Korea in Northeast Asia,” p. 16. William Drennan, “Prospects for a United Korea and What It Would Mean,” a paper presented at the 13th Annual Conference of The Council on US-Korean Security Studies, Seoul, Korea, November 4–7, 1998, pp. 8–10.
- America's 200-year legacy of involvement in Asia has always taken place within the context of a weak, or at least a “land bound China.” The rise of China today is really unprecedented since serious Western involvement in Asia began in the early 19th century. This is an era that is absolutely novel in US strategic experience. China is politically united, economically vibrant, and militarily able to defend its sovereignty. America's last experience with a rising power in Asia—the Japan of a hundred years ago—did not turn out well. The difference today of course is that in the first half of the 20th century Imperial Japan had a large navy and the means to project military power throughout the region. Today China does not, but the past does offer tantalizing glimpses as to what the future might hold if China eventually fields the ability to project power beyond the Asia mainland.
Korean Journal of Defense Analysis
Volume 13, 2001 - Issue 1