Biden cannot save Moon presidency
By Stephen Costello
WASHINGTON, D.C. ― There are dangers in hoping that the coming administration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be so strategically smart, and so well-staffed, that it will relieve the Moon Jae-in administration of responsibility for setting out a plan for U.S. re-engagement with South and North Korea in the next months. Yes, in important ways this will be re-engagement with both Koreas.
A reset between the U.S. and South Korea should be quick and orderly. Although this will be celebrated by the Blue House, it shouldn't be, because the Trump administration's bullying and disrespect never should have been so meekly accepted in the first place.
For instance, the ROK contribution to the military cost-sharing agreement should take into account Seoul's spending spree on armaments in the past three years. It could be frozen at 2016 levels, and the U.S. could adjust its costs ― and troop levels ― as it sees fit.
The more important metric ― in both realistic and symbolic ways ― will be the Biden position on wartime operational control transfer. The previous policy combination from Washington ― refusal to engage in credible and meaningful diplomacy with North Korea to lower the temperature, combined with preventing operational control transfer until “conditions” were right ― was transparently aimed at retaining U.S. military control over its ally. There are several other elements of the alliance that should be adjusted soon.
On North Korea, there are three key issues that should guide any successful pivot in the U.S. position. First, credible, durable, and significant relief from U.N. extreme sanctions should be on the table soon. Second, sanctions. And third, sanctions. Such a shift would not be rewarding or being nice to the North.
Rather, it would demonstrate seriousness of purpose and accuracy of analysis, and that the new team knows two things. That extreme sanctions have always been not only ineffective but counter-productive, and that relieving them is the one central key to getting a freeze on the nuclear weapons and missile programs, preparing for their rollback and elimination.
By aiming for a near-term “Hanoi-plus” agreement, Biden could return U.S. policy to the successful approach that was working 20 years ago, and begin to account for the nuclear and missile programs that were then non-existent.
And yet, it is not at all clear that the new U.S. administration can or will take these steps. Particularly within a time frame of six to nine months. Therefore, the message from Seoul should be to specify its view and its plan to get the two allies back on track to make an initial agreement with Pyongyang at the earliest time.
The argument can be simple and powerful: With this early initiative, the allies could have IAEA inspectors on the ground at the earliest time; South Korea could ramp up its multi-pronged economic, security and political engagement with North Korea; and the U.S. could proceed with the transformative diplomacy that would reap multiple benefits in coming years.
I spent five weeks in Korea during August, September, and October, talking with scholars, journalists, former and current government officials, and civic activists. I looked across the river at Imjingak and Paju, and had long discussions with leaders of the Korea-Japan bridge/tunnel project in Busan.
Among other impressions, I felt strong impatience and frustration with government inaction, regarding both the Korea-U.S. alliance and inter-Korean engagement.
Rather than the fringe and distracting possibilities of South Korean embrace of Chinese leadership, de-coupling from its U.S. alliance, or embracing its own nuclear weapons, this frustration seemed well-grounded and realistic. At the DMZ Forum 2020 in Goyang, such frustrations were palpable.
President Moon's administration does not have nine months to wait to find out if the Biden team is capable of this kind of enlightened and bold diplomacy.
If waiting and pleading with Washington from the sidelines continues to be Seoul's posture, rather than advancing its own plan, then progress on all the most pressing issues in U.S.-South and U.S.-North Korean relations could stretch into the next South Korean administration, with all the uncertainties that entails.
With the best foreign policy and security team any Korean administration has put together since the Kim Dae-jung years, it would be a terrible shame to waste its talents during the rare coming year of possibility, 2021.
Stephen Costello (scost55@gmail.com) managed the Kim Dae Jung Peace Foundation Washington office in the 1990s. He directed the Korea program at the Atlantic Council there from 1999 to 2004. He now directs AsiaEast.Org, a policy initiative focused on security, development and politics in Northeast Asia. He writes from Washington and Seoul.