For peace and denuclearization
By Tong Kim
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The defense ministers of South Korea and the United States concluded their annual security consultative meeting (SCM) in Washington, Oct. 31, with an agreement to provide military support for the diplomatic efforts to achieve “a final, fully verified denuclearization” and to establish lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula.
Military support requires U.S. endorsement of the inter-Korean military agreement of Sept. 29 and continued suspension of large-scale Korea-U.S. military exercises, which the North views as a rehearsal for an invasion on them. Defense secretary James Mattis told reporters that the Pentagon supports the inter-Korean military accord.
Since President Trump single-handedly cancelled such full-scale allied exercises in Singapore, there have been no ROK-U.S. air force drills, employing B-1B Lancer bombers. No plan of allied exercises has been announced for the future. The alliance is working on other ways of joint training, essential to the maintenance of combat readiness.
Last week's SCM also paved the way for “a conditions-based transfer of the wartime operational control” of the combined forces to the South Korean military. The timing of transition will be determined when the South Koreans are ready to meet the conditions. But, the command structure will remain the same with a switching of roles between U.S. and Korean commanders.
Upon the transition of operational control, a South Korean general will become the commander and a U.S. general will be the deputy commander of the combined forces command, which is currently led by a U.S. general. The two countries also agreed to maintain the current level of 28,500 U.S. troops in Korea, beyond the transfer of operational control. This will place U.S. troops under the command of a foreign general for the first time in history.
On the Korean peninsula, the North and the South ceased hostile military exercises against each other Nov. 1, as agreed in the September military agreement. They will not conduct military exercises along the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) on land, air and sea.
There will be no live-fire artillery drills or field training exercises at the regiment level or higher within 3 miles of the MDL. There will be no naval or coastal exercises in an established buffer zone at the seas on both west and east of the peninsula. The barrels of coastal artillery and ship guns have been covered, to ensure a safe fishing zone.
“No fly zones” have been designated for combat aircraft to stay away from the MDL. This arrangement has been controversial, as it has little benefit for the South in light of the fact that the North carries out only a few hours of flight training due to a shortage of aircraft fuel.
To prevent any type of accidental clash, the parties are withdrawing guard posts, removing landmines, and demilitarizing the joint security area, with the goal of turning the DMZ into a peace zone. Through direct lines of communication, the two sides will prevent any type of accidental clash in the DMZ. On the nuclear front, Kim Jong-un may still visit the South within this year, whereas a second U.S.-North Korea summit may not take place until sometime early next year. It appears that Kim will probably meet with the leaders of Russia and China, before he will meet with the U.S. president, who still speaks well of Kim and has an interest in meeting with him again.
Right now, it is not clear what the U.S. wants the North to do next. The latter clearly rejected and showed no interest in reconsidering the U.S. request for a nuclear declaration. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last week that he would meet with a North Korean representative to discuss the expert verifications of the nuclear testing and missile launching sites that the North had dismantled irreversibly. He did not say with whom or where the meeting would take place.
In the meantime, North Korea policy representative Stephen Biegun set up a working group with South Korea, presumably to coordinate the pace of the denuclearization process with sanctions lifting. On Oct. 7, Pompeo and Kim Jong-un also agreed to operate a working group to expedite the denuclearization of North Korea, but no such meeting has taken place so far.
It has been more than a month since the North shifted its interest in a symbolic war ending declaration to tangible sanction relief, as Kim focuses on the still crippled North Korean economy. While the military support for denuclearization is conducive to making progress in denuclearization, the North does not seem ready to take the next step as long as the sanctions remain intact.
Tong Kim (tong.kim8@yahoo.com) is a Washington correspondent and columnist for The Korea Times. He is also a fellow at the Institute of Corean-American Studies.