The Korean Conundrum: America's Troubled Relations with North and South Korea

225 Pages·2004·0.92 MB·English

by  Ted Galen Carpenter

THE KOREAN CONUNDRUM
America’s Troubled Relations
with North and South Korea
ALSO BY TED GALEN CARPENTER
Peace and Freedom: Foreign Policy for a Constitutional Republic
The Captive Press: Foreign Policy Crises and the First Amendment
Beyond NATO: Staying out of Europe’s Wars
A Search for Enemies: America’s Alliances after the Cold War
Bad Neighbor Policy: Washington’s Futile War on Drugs in Latin America
ALSO BY DOUG BANDOW
Tripwire: Korea and U.S. Foreign Policy in a Changed World
The Politics of Envy: Statism as Theology
Human Resources and Defense Manpower
Beyond Good Intentions: A Biblical View of Politics
Edited by Doug Bandow and Ted Galen Carpenter
The U.S.-South Korean Alliance: Time for a Change
THE KOREAN CONUNDRUM
America’s Troubled Relations
with North and South Korea
Ted Galen Carpenter and Doug Bandow
THEKOREANCONUNDRUM
Copyright © Ted Galen Carpenter and Doug Bandow, 2004.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in
critical articles or reviews.
First published 2004 by
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is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries.
ISBN 1-4039-6545-5 hardback
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Carpenter, Ted Galen.
The Korean conundrum : America’s troubled relations with North and South Korea /
Ted Galen Carpenter and Doug Bandow.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-4039-6545-5
1. Nuclear weapons—Korea (North) 2. Korea—Military relations—United States.
3. United States—Military relations—Korea. 4. United States—Military policy.
I. Bandow, Doug. II. Title.
UA853.K5C37 2004
355’.031’097309519—dc22
2004043460
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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First edition: December 2004.
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Printed in the United States of America
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments vi
Introduction 1
1. Growing Tensions with Both North and South Korea 9
2. The North Korean Nuclear Crisis: Then and Now 39
3. Options for Dealing with North Korea 71
4. South Korea as a Security Free-Rider 101
5. Time for an Amicable Divorce 123
6. Forging a New U.S. Strategy in East Asia 145
Notes 167
Index 211
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Weowe a debt of gratitude to numerous people for helping to make this book
possible. Edward H. Crane, president of the Cato Institute, has provided sus-
tained and enthusiastic backing for this project and so many other aspects of
the Institute’s foreign policy program for more than two decades. The same
can be said of William Niskanen and David Boaz, respectively the chairman
and executive vice president of the Institute.
Our appreciation goes out as well to Michael Flamini and Anthony Wahl,
our project editors at Palgrave Macmillan. Alan Bradshaw and Amanda John-
son at Palgrave provided significant help keeping the production process on
track. Key members of the Cato Institute staff, most notably Justin Logan,
Feliz Ventura, and Joshua Dunn, were invaluable in helping to prepare the
manuscript for publication. Martha Sencindiver did her usual fine job with
the index.
Most of all, we want to thank our families for the emotional support they
gave us throughout this project.
I N T R O D U C T I O N
Perhaps unique among America’s security commitments, the guarantee for the
Republic of Korea (ROK) arose from inadvertence. As the victor in a bitter
struggle with Japan during World War II, Washington was left to dispose of
the detritus of the Japanese empire. Korea, a once-independent kingdom for-
mally seized as a colony by Tokyo in 1910, was divided between the United
States and Soviet Union. The Cold War quickly froze the temporary adminis-
trative division into a permanent border between two hostile states.
Although there was much to criticize in U.S. policy before North Korea’s
1950 invasion of South Korea, the most likely alternative to division of the
peninsula would have been a unified communist state. If that had happened,
nearly 70 million Koreans today would be living in an impoverished tyranny.
And the ability of what we now call the “North” to commit mischief and even
mayhem would be magnified dramatically.
Unfortunately, the price of preventing reunification on Kim Il-sung’s
terms was the three-year Korean War. The conflict changed little on the penin-
sula other than wreaking horrendous death and destruction, but it put Amer-
ica and China at war with one another and deepened the dependence of both
Koreas on their respective allies—China and the Soviet Union, in the case of
the North, and the United States for the Republic of Korea. A half century
later the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) remains frozen in
time, a Stalinist monument to totalitarianism and collectivism, enshrouded in
probably the most pervasive, and certainly the most persistent, personality cult
in modern history.
Unfortunately, the U.S.–ROK alliance also seems to be frozen in time.
America continues to guarantee the security of the South, as if the latter re-
mained an impoverished dwarf facing an imposing regional communist al-
liance and the Cold War continued to rage, with a geopolitical “loss” anywhere
on the globe weakening the United States in its life-and-death struggle against
2
THE KOREAN CONUNDRUM
the Soviet Union. American officials plan military force modernization pro-
grams; analysts worry about “who” will defend Seoul; every member of the
American security establishment proclaims the need to preserve Washington’s
military presence.
Yet anyone whose academic, military, or political career is not tied to the
U.S.–South Korean status quo must wonder at the world in which these dis-
cussions are occurring. Beyond Pyongyang one sees economic globalization,
advancing democracy, and American dominance. North Korea’s fulminations
continue unabated, but the DPRK has lost its allies and has been surpassed by
the ROK in every measure of power other than military force. South Korea,
with the world’s twelfth largest economy, is an increasing global presence,
while the impoverished North matters not.
Except. Except for the fact that North Korea has embarked on the devel-
opment of nuclear weapons.
Although it is possible that the North is engaged in one of the grandest
bluffs of all time, it would be foolish to assume that Pyongyang is not deadly
serious in its intention to acquire atomic weapons and in its development ef-
forts. Whether the DPRK possesses as few as two or as many as six weapons
(common estimates when in the spring of 2003 it began reprocessing nuclear
fuel that had been stored as part of the 1994 Agreed Framework), the ongo-
ing reprocessing effort could yield several more. And operation of its nuclear
reactor could generate enough plutonium for North Korea to develop a small
but significant arsenal over time—and, even more ominously, to open a fully
stocked Nukes ’R Us on the side.
The North’s nuclear ambitions have stirred tension and fear throughout
the region. Ironically, if Washington did not deploy troops in the South and
had not effectively smothered allied defense efforts in the past, America’s in-
volvement would be only tangential. Obviously, nuclear weapons in the hands
of North Korea would primarily threaten its neighbors, not distant America.
And the potential terrorist threat wasn’t even a gleam in most policymakers’
eyes more than a decade ago, when the “crisis” first erupted.
But everyone now looks to the United States for answers—while criticiz-
ing Washington for its policies. Dealing with the North would never have
been easy, but the process is made more difficult by two factors. First, Pyong-
yang offers an opaque foreign window through which American policymakers
must peer. The North may be brandishing its nuclear option as a means to
gain respect and attention, and, in turn, bribes in the form of aid, trade, secu-
rity guarantees, and diplomatic recognition. It may be talking about negotia-
tion to disguise its determination to build a nuclear arsenal. Or it may be
3
INTRODUCTION
holding its options open, undecided about its ultimate course. There is no way
to be certain about Pyongyang’s motives or intentions.
Second, the United States and its allies have created the worst possible ne-
gotiating dynamic. The North learned long ago that no positive steps would
be forthcoming voluntarily from America, Japan, or South Korea; even after
China and the Soviet Union recognized the ROK, the United States, in par-
ticular, evinced little interest in forming any relationship with the North. But
when Pyongyang started discussing its nuclear plans, near panic ensued in
Seoul, Tokyo, and Washington. The DPRK was recognized and accommo-
dated. Little changed in the decade after Washington inked the Agreed Frame-
work. North Korea may have decided to cheat from day 1, but even if so,
America’s failure to follow through with its commitments under the 1994
agreement gave the DPRK ample excuse to cheat. And Pyongyang could be
forgiven for believing that future improvements in its relations with the
United States and Japan, if not with the ROK, required returning to the pol-
itics of confrontation.
Responding to the North’s challenge has grown more complex with the di-
vergence in views between Seoul and Washington. The South Korean shift
from the hard-line policy of Kim Young-sam to the “sunshine policy” of Kim
Dae-jung caused little angst in the Clinton administration, but clashed sharply
with President George W. Bush’s characterization of the DPRK as a member
of the “axis of evil.” The split obviously impeded coordination between the
two capitals; it also helped feed growing antagonism toward the United States.
Indeed, anti-American feeling helped propel Roh Moo-hyun into Korea’s Blue
House in December 2002. Although he subsequently backpedaled feverishly,
proclaiming his fealty to the U.S.–ROK alliance, even many hawkish Ameri-
can policymakers were appalled at the rhetorical and sometimes physical at-
tacks on American soldiers and suggested that if the South Koreans did not
want us, maybe it was time to go.
The two countries worked hard to patch up their relationship, but pro-
posed solutions, such as moving Yongsan base out of downtown Seoul, were
mere Band-Aids. The two nations have grown apart: they perceive the threat
from the North differently, advance very different responses to the DPRK’s
nuclear threats, and foresee a significantly different future relationship. In-
deed, the latter conflict of visions almost ensures a not-too-distant alliance
crack-up.
Today many South Koreans see little threat from the North. And while
some ROK policymakers hope American forces will remain even after reunifi-
cation as a deterrent to China or Japan, they evince no interest in aiding the