Suspension of inter-Korean military pact may prompt more NK provocations: experts

Soldiers stand guard in the Joint Security Area of the truce village of Panmunjeom inside the Demilitarized Zone, which separates the two Koreas, Oct. 4, 2022. Joint Press Corps

S. Korea advised to abandon certain provisions rather than scrapping entire pact

By Lee Hyo-jin

On Sept. 19, 2018, the defense ministers of South and North Korea signed a Comprehensive Military Agreement (CMA), aimed at halting all hostile activities between them. This agreement included the prohibition of military drills in border areas and the establishment of no-fly zones near the boundary.

However, the effectiveness of this pact, also known as the Sept. 19 military agreement, has been called into question in recent months as North Korea has intensified military provocations since last year.

According to the 2022 Defense White Paper issued by the Ministry of National Defense, North Korea violated the military agreement at least 17 times between November 2019 and December 2022. The most recent incident occurred in December last year when five North Korean drones infiltrated South Korean airspace and flew over Seoul.

Given this background, officials from the conservative Yoon Suk Yeol administration are calling for the suspension of the 2018 inter-Korean military agreement.

Defense Minister Shin Won-sik, in particular, argues that the agreement significantly restricts Seoul's surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities near the border area. He warned that without better border surveillance, South Korea may not be able to properly defend itself from a North Korean invasion similar to the recent surprise attack on Israel by the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

However, experts cautioned against the idea of suspending the CMA, stressing that the benefits of maintaining the military pact outweigh the drawbacks of scrapping it.

"The agreement establishes guardrails that could prevent incidents from escalating into crises, however imperfect they may be. There is some utility in having buffer zones," said Naoko Aoki, an associate political scientist at the RAND Corporation who specializes in East Asian security issues.

The CMA has instituted buffer zones between the two Koreas by prohibiting hostility on land, sea and air near the border. Specifically, the two sides are restricted from conducting live-fire artillery drills within five kilometers of the Military Demarcation Line (MDL). Plus, no-fly zones have been implemented along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), along with a ban on the operation of unmanned aerial vehicles, helicopters and other aircraft within 40 kilometers of the MDL.

"Given the current tensions (between the two Koreas), it is unlikely that another agreement like this can be drawn up in the foreseeable future, so that should be taken into consideration," she added.

South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo, front row left and North Korean Minister of the People's Armed Forces No Kwang-chol, front row right, shake hands after signing an inter-Korean military agreement during the inter-Korean summit between South Korean President Moon Jae-in, back row left, and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang, Sept. 19, 2018. Joint Press Corps

Terence Roehrig, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College, echoed this sentiment, stating, "Though North Korea has violated the agreement on several occasions and is not adhering to the spirit of the CMA, South Korea is better off with the agreement in place than walking away from it."

Roehrig added that security concerns regarding North Korea’s non-compliance with the CMA are relatively minor compared to the security and political costs of ending the agreement, which would undercut the broader goal of promoting long-term stability on the Korean Peninsula.

The absence of the military agreement would lead to increased belligerence from North Korea, analysts believe.

"Pyongyang would craft a narrative portraying Seoul as the aggressor, using South Korea’s suspension of the military agreement to justify its military provocations," Roehrig said.

In that sense, Aoki suggested that South Korea should further use the idea of suspending the CMA as political leverage against North Korea, instead of actually taking actions to scrap it, saying, "North Korea’s violation of the agreement makes it a problematic actor, so South Korea has the moral high ground."

But the fact that the military accord limits South Korea’s reconnaissance capabilities on the North cannot be ignored, according to Bruce Bennett, a defense researcher at the RAND Corporation.

"Over the years I have heard comments from both South Korean and U.S. colleagues that the inability to fly reconnaissance aircraft near the DMZ denies our countries' key reconnaissance information. Thus I would also think that those provisions should be abandoned," said the American researcher.

A North Korean guard post is seen from Imjingak Park on the South Korean side of the Demilitarized Zone in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, July 20. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk

Bennett also raised some humanitarian issues linked to the agreement.

According to him, some U.S. military personnel stationed in South Korea expressed concerns that, for instance, if a U.S. soldier serving at Panmunjeom got appendicitis, they could not fly a helicopter up to Panmunjeom – due to the provisions in the agreement – and provide a timely evacuation for the patient.

As such, Bennett commented that the South Korean government can consider canceling its observance of certain elements of the agreement, rather than abandoning the entire pact.

Discussions about scrapping the military pact seem to be picking up pace among officials in Seoul.

The Ministry of Unification, which handles inter-Korean relations, said Tuesday that related discussions are underway with other government bodies.

"In the current situation, I would say that the ball is in North Korea's court regarding the suspension of the Sept.19 agreement," a senior defense official told reporters in a closed-door briefing, also on Tuesday.

On the same day, Yonhap News reported, citing an unnamed government official, that the government is mulling the possibility of taking action to partially suspend the agreement as a precautionary measure against North Korean provocations.

If Pyongyang launches a spy satellite, Seoul may normalize its reconnaissance activities in the East and West Sea regions, the official was quoted as saying.

After two botched attempts to launch a reconnaissance satellite in May and August, the Kim Jong-un regime promised to make a third attempt in October. But it missed its own deadline.

South Korean defense officials view that the North may make a third attempt in late November, after receiving technical support from Russia.