[Roundtable] Plan B needed to brace for Trump 2.0 and security turmoil on Korean Peninsula
This combo image shows U.S. President Joe Biden, left, Jan. 5, and Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump, right, Jan. 19. AP-Yonhap
Experts urge Seoul to prepare for post-US-election geopolitical shiftsBy Kang Hyun-kyungA debate has intensified in South Korea regarding the upcoming U.S. presidential election slated for Nov. 5 and its potential implications for the country. There are increasing calls to prepare for the possibility of former U.S. President Donald Trump's return to office, prompting discussions and considerations about the potential ramifications for South Korea's foreign policy and domestic affairs.
Trump's criticism of U.S. allies, accusing them of misusing U.S. taxpayer funds for their defense, has heightened concerns and urgency in Seoul regarding his potential return to office. South Korea is particularly focused on the fate of U.S. troops stationed in the country and the possibility of Trump resuming direct negotiations with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. These developments have underscored the importance for Seoul to develop more effective strategies and tactics to respond to potential changes in U.S. foreign policy.
During a roundtable hosted by The Korea Times on Feb. 22, three prominent foreign policy experts asserted that U.S. policy priorities, particularly diplomatic efforts based on strong deterrence against North Korea's provocations, are expected to persist even in the event of Trump's reelection. They also agreed on the need to have a Plan B to mitigate any risk the outcome of the U.S. election may bring to the alliance. They hoped that Trump gained valuable insights from his experiences in his first term about the inherent difficulty in finding solutions that satisfy all stakeholders.
The three are Kim Won-soo, former under-secretary-general of the United Nations; Ahn Ho-young, South Korea’s former ambassador to the United States.; and Choo Jae-woo, a professor at Kyung Hee University's Department of Chinese Studies. The event was moderated by Shim Jae-yun, chief editorial writer of The Korea Times.
The experts emphasized that while achieving denuclearization of North Korea may seem unrealistic, it will continue to be a diplomatic goal for the U.S. government. They highlighted that the potential costs associated with not pursuing denuclearization, both for the U.S. and other relevant countries like China, would be considerable. They cautioned that a deal being reached to freeze North Korea's nuclear weapons while allowing existing bombs to remain could inevitably lead to a nuclear arms race in the region. This, in turn, could jeopardize the integrity of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Therefore, any negotiation with North Korea needs to be based on the principle that every concern of both sides should be put on the table.
They said South Korea needs to come up with a sophisticated diplomatic plan to effectively respond to Trump’s possible attempt which may weaken the alliance. They said South Korea could consider teaming up with U.S. lawmakers and other U.S. allies that share similar concerns about a potential policy shift if Trump returns to office, and cooperating with them to take institutional measures to cope with any possible negative impact on the alliance.
A case in point was the measure taken regarding the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
The U.S. Senate introduced a bipartisan measure aimed at preventing any U.S. president from unilaterally withdrawing from NATO. The provision, which is part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), was subsequently approved in the U.S. House of Representatives in December of last year.
The following is a transcript of the roundtable interviews with the three experts. Questions and answers were edited for clarity.
Shim Jae-yun, right, chief editorial writer of The Korea Times, speaks during The Korea Times roundtable on the U.S. presidential election and its possible impact on the two Koreas at the newspaper's office on Feb. 22. From left, Kim Won-soo, former under-secretary-general of the United Nations, Choo Jae-woo, professor of Kyung Hee University, and Ahn Ho-young, former South Korean ambassador to the United States, were invited to the event to share their thoughts about the issue. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk
Q: The U.S. presidential election is nine months away. All eyes are on who will be the next U.S. president. In the hypothetical election matchup, some polls find former President Donald Trump is ahead of the current President Joe Biden. What are your thoughts on possible changes in U.S. policy toward South and North Korea if Trump wins the election?
Ahn Ho-young: No matter who wins the November election, the U.S. policy stance on North Korea is unlikely to undergo a significant change. President Biden unveiled the U.S. foreign policy posture in 2021 when he was inaugurated. There was one striking line about North Korea and it stated that the U.S. would seek diplomacy and stern deterrence when dealing with the North. The Biden administration didn’t mention sanctions and has been consistent in its responses to North Korea's provocations. Whenever North Korea relied on brinkmanship diplomacy, the U.S. condemned the North but left room for diplomacy by stating that the U.S. is ready for dialogue. The U.S. has been consistent with this principled approach, even if it has been criticized as strategic patience. Is this because the U.S. believes strategic patience is effective? The answer is no. Then why did the Biden administration do that? I think that is because officials there believe that there is no other alternative to the present course the US is taking. In such a context, the role of deterrence will become more important. Even if Trump returns to office, I think he will find it difficult to change the course of action. Diplomacy and stern deterrence will continue to be a core part of U.S. policy toward North Korea, not because that stance is most effective, but because there are no other options that the U.S. can resort to.
Choo Jae-woo: Maybe it’s time to review strategic patience because, in retrospect, it worked out quite well. The strategy played a part to make North Korea isolated and its economy go badly. Strategic patience, together with diplomacy and deterrence, have paid off. The Obama administration, for example, relied on strategic patience but working-level talks were held between the U.S. and North Korea. This made the North keep pinning hopes on something to happen for them, but unfortunately nothing happened. Through deterrence, the U.S. seems to have gained what it wanted, as we’ve seen the deployment of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) and the trilateral partnership between the U.S., South Korea and Japan. The U.S. has seen progress made in its foreign policy because of strategic patience.
Kim Won-soo: Strategic patience toward North Korea has met a significant challenge because of Russia. Through its military cooperation with North Korea, Russia helped the North evade isolation as the two isolated countries agreed to team up. A consensus in the U.N. Security Council is necessary to help strategic patience yield fruit, but reaching a consensus has become almost impossible because of Russia's veto. The UNSC won't be able to slap new sanctions on North Korea, no matter what North Korea will do. This is likely to embolden North Korea's provocative behavior. Therefore, now is the time to fix the loopholes of strategic patience and contemplate how we can improve its efficacy. I believe South Korea should play a key role in overhauling it as a directly concerned country. South Korea is also best placed to come up with the right policy mix about North Korean challenges and persuade other major powers with stakes on the Korean Peninsula, including the U.S., China, Japan and Russia. This requires, among other things, robust domestic bipartisan consensus in South Korea about the North Korean policy, which seems very challenging in the context of polarized South Korean politics
Q: Trump’s recent remarks that he could no longer protect NATO allies from Russia has alarmed the member countries. Some 24,000 U.S. troops are deployed in South Korea. Do his comments have any implications for South Korea? How should South Korea prepare for Trump’s possible return to office?
Choo: I’d like to remind everyone of how the U.S. Senate and Congress worked together to prepare for Trump’s possible return to office. As you know, Trump tried to withdraw U.S. forces from NATO when he was in office. So, the U.S. Senate has prepared for his return to office since 2021 and adopted a legislative measure to prevent a U.S. withdrawal from NATO. The provision is part of the NDAA and it was approved by the House in December. Under the scheme, any U.S. president cannot withdraw from NATO without the approval of two-thirds of the Senate or separate measure passed by Congress. What I hope for is that South Korea can work with the U.S. Senate and Congress to draw up a similar measure to prevent the withdrawal of U.S. troops from South Korea. When you look at U.S. global strategies, including the U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy, you will find that the ROK-U.S. alliance is one of the critical foundations. The strategic importance of the ROK-U.S. alliance in U.S. global strategies may help South Korea find it easier to sell its idea and make it happen. In case South Korea finds it tough to push it through alone, we can team up with countries like Japan, for example, because Japan is also facing a similar concern.
Kim: We need a Plan B, a thorough one. In the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, there is an institutional system in place, and it works quite well. We can make the most of this to generate mutually beneficial outcomes. As professor Choo pointed out, we can collaborate with other like-minded countries, including U.S. allies such as Japan, Australia and European partners.
Time is on our side. It is very good that South Korea-Japan relations have improved after President Yoon Suk Yeol took office, and this will make it relatively easier for South Korea to collaborate with Japan. Seoul-Tokyo relations have improved in response to North Korea’s growing threat. But we can be creative. South Korea can work with Japan to formulate a Plan B together to prepare for Trump’s possible return to office. Seoul and Tokyo can share wisdom mutually gained in the first term of Trump and consider building a like-minded coalition. Trump is transactional. South Korea, possibly with Japan, can persuade him if we make a strong case that the transactional cost of his potential effort to undermine the U.S. alliance with South Korea and Japan will be so huge that the U.S. would lose out in such an ill-advised attempt.
Ahn: I concur with former Under-Secretary-General Kim about his view that the way President Trump sees the world is transactional. We have to base our actions on such an understanding. We need to be strategic when we are dealing with people like him. One thing I would like to point out is that the composition of the U.S. Congress has changed a lot, compared to eight years ago when President Trump was in office. In the House, the number of Trump supporters has increased. He is influential in the U.S. Congress.
Recently, there was an encouraging development in the U.S. Congress. In February, the U.S. Senate passed a $95 billion bill designed to provide aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. (The Senate jettisoned bipartisan efforts to boost immigration enforcement at the U.S.-Mexico border after many Republican Senators, following the lead of Trump, viewed it to be inadequate.) I found that no less than 22 Republican Senators voted for the bill (which is now headed to the Republican-controlled House for a final vote). I was so impressed and looked into the list of 22 Republican Senators who voted for the bill because I was curious who they were.
Q: North Korea's threat has become sophisticated. And the North had continued to build up its nuclear capabilities to solidify its status as a nuclear power. Given this, do you believe denuclearizing North Korea is achievable? Will there be a need to discard denuclearization negotiations and adopt a new format of disarmament talks?
Kim: Denuclearization is and should continue to be an end goal to achieve. This is a daunting task unprecedented in the history of nuclear arms control and disarmament, but it cannot be given up. If we give up denuclearization, North Korea will be recognized as a de facto nuclear state. And this likely means the beginning of the collapse of the NPT. This is a nightmare for all. If North Korea becomes a nuclear weapon state, this would agitate South Koreans, and public opinion would evolve even stronger in favor of South Korea’s nuclear armament. If South Korea arms itself with nuclear weapons, other countries in the region, such as Japan and even Taiwan, will also feel the need to follow suit. If this happens, not only the U.S. but also China will face unmanageable proliferation risks.
A nuclear-weapon-free North Korea may sound unfeasible at the moment, but we need to keep trying to make it happen. For that, we need to prevail on North Korea to come back to negotiation on the basis that everything should be on the table. This means both of our and their concerns must not be precluded from any negotiation.
Ahn: The importance of the NPT cannot be overstated. When the treaty was proposed by the U.S. in 1960’s, the former Soviet Union was fully supportive because there was a shared belief that the international community needed such a scheme to prevent proliferation. The first survey that asked South Koreans about their opinions about South Korea’s possession of nuclear weapons was released in 2022 and at that time, 76 percent of South Koreans were in favor. The U.S. officials and think tank experts whom I met were stunned whenever they heard about the survey results. Eventually, South Koreans’ overwhelming support for nuclear armament became a type of leverage and convinced the U.S. to team up with South Korea to create the Nuclear Consultation Group (NCG). The NCG is a very useful institution for South Korea and we need to make the most of it to deter North Korea's threat.
Choo: I’d like to note that there are discrepancies between the U.S. and North Korea about the definition of denuclearization, so it’s going to be very difficult to narrow their differences.
Q: How do you think North Korea interpret the ongoing wars in Ukraine, the Middle East and tensions in the Taiwan Strait? Will the North continue to resort to military provocations coupled with brinkmanship diplomacy?
Ahn: To answer these questions, we need to dive deep into what Kim Jong-un has in mind. There is a single vital interest he tries hard to secure: the Kim dynasty dictatorship. This is North Korea’s ultimate goal and other issues, for example, nuclear weapons or inter-Korean relations, are just means to keep it safe. Why has the North built up nuclear weapons? This is because it believes nuclear weapons would help the regime maintain dictatorship. Why did the regime introduce measures to denounce national homogeneity, and reconciliation and unification with the South? Because the more North Korea sticks to national homogeneity, the more it is baffled by North Korean citizens’ wondering why the same people live so differently in the South and the North. For that reason, North Korea has tried hard and failed to cut off South’s cultural influences on North Korean society. This is because the regime fears the potential fallout on its survival. With these measures in place, North Korean society has become more repressive and the economy has gone from bad to worse. I hope some day the North Korea come to realize that its nuclear program does not strengthen its security, but only make their lives more difficult and conclude that it needs to change its course. The North needs Gorbachev moment of its own.
But now is not the time for that. The prolonged war in Ukraine and the widening war in the Middle East have allowed the North to relish the wider room for maneuver. The North Korean economy would benefit from arms sales to Russia, while the war in Ukraine continues.
Choo: I think Kim Jong-un knows that all options were out over the past three decades since 1994 when the U.S. and North Korea held direct talks to terminate North Korea’s nuclear program and reached the Agreed Framework. He will also know that there will be no other creative or fresh proposals, because all possible options have been tried. The ball is in North Korea’s court. The North has become isolated and its economy has gotten worse after the U.S. introduced strategic patience. Therefore, I believe if the North realizes it will be unable to endure economic hardships any longer, it may stop brinksmanship diplomacy and show signs of a willingness for dialogue.
Kim: We’ve seen that South Korea’s policy toward the North has often shifted from one extreme to another with a government change. This must be rectified. There needs to be a bipartisan consensus built about South Korea’s vision on the future of the Korean Peninsula and this vision must be maintained regardless of a government change. Otherwise, our neighbors will not take our vision seriously and try to exploit our domestic division to pursue their priorities.
Going to war with North Korea is not our preferred option. But preventing it requires our collective efforts combining deterrence and diplomacy. We need to clarify our strategy to our neighbors so that the North does not cross the red line. This is a formidable task for South Korea. It needs not only domestic consensus building but also close coordination through the ROK-U.S. alliance and the South Korea-U.S.- and Japan trilateral cooperation, as well as consultation with China and Russia. Each of these is tough. The road ahead will be bumpy. But South Korea owes the efforts to both the Korean people and the whole world.
Shim Jae-yun, chief editorial writer of The Korea Times, left, poses with three panelists of a roundtable held on Feb. 22. Second from left are Choo Jae-woo, professor of Kyung Hee University, Kim Won-soo, former under-secretary-general of the United Nations, and Ahn Ho-young, former South Korean ambassador to the United States. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk