ED Lee's ill-timed offer to suspend joint drills
President Lee Jae Myung speaks during a news conference held on the presidential jet Monday while en route to Turkey after wrapping up his G20 summit schedule in South Africa. Yonhap
Don't let North Korea buy time to advance its weapons again
President Lee Jae Myung proposed suspending the South Korea-U.S. joint military drills, saying the exercises could function either as leverage or as an outcome of improved inter-Korean relations.
Speaking to reporters aboard the presidential jet while en route to Turkey after concluding his G20 summit schedule in South Africa, Lee said the joint drills are among the most sensitive issues for North Korea.
“Once a durable peace is established between the two Koreas, it will be desirable to suspend the joint drills,” he said. “If such a peace system is in place, the two Koreas would no longer need to fight. If this becomes a reality, the U.S. will also feel its interests are served because President Donald Trump dislikes the costly war games.”
Although conditional, this marks the first time Lee has publicly suggested suspending the joint drills.
South Korea and the United States conduct two large-scale exercises each year: Freedom Shield, typically held in March, and Ulchi Freedom Shield, usually conducted in August. North Korea has reacted sharply to these displays of force.
Pyongyang has demanded U.S. recognition of its status as a nuclear power state and the suspension of joint military exercises as prerequisites for resuming talks with Washington.
Lee has expressed skepticism about the feasibility of North Korean denuclearization, calling it unrealistic at this stage, given the North’s existing arsenal. He has instead proposed a three-stage approach: freezing the North’s nuclear and missile programs, scaling them back and, ultimately, complete denuclearization. North Korea has dismissed this framework as “ridiculous,” reiterating it has no intention of abandoning its nuclear weapons.
It's time for policymakers in Seoul to seriously consider what South Korea loses when its peace overtures go unanswered. Progress is possible only when the two Koreas share a common understanding and viewpoint, yet North Korea has consistently rejected Lee’s proposals.
Lee has urged patience and continued peace gestures to draw Pyongyang back to talks. But the critical question remains: What if North Korea does not even regard the South as its counterpart?
Recurring policy reversals with each change of government have only compounded the problem. South Korea has swung between two opposing approaches to North Korea depending on which political party held power. Conservative administrations have pursued hard-line strategies, emphasizing the achievement of peace through strength and intensifying efforts to inform North Korean citizens about the world beyond their reclusive state.
Liberal administrations, by contrast, have prioritized engagement with Pyongyang. Inter-Korean summits were held when liberal politicians were in power, and dialogue with the North was expanded.
The troubling reality, however, is that neither hard-line approaches nor engagement strategies have produced meaningful progress in inter-Korean relations. Instead, North Korea has repeatedly used the shifts in South Korea’s policy to buy time to further advance and refine its nuclear and missile capabilities. South Korea has paid the price for this chronic policy inconsistency.
Since taking office in June, Lee appears to be repeating the same mistakes made by his predecessors, and has been openly critical of previous conservative administrations’ policies toward the North.
“I don’t understand why they used rhetoric like ‘unification by absorption.’ I wonder if they had any idea about the price paid for such reckless remarks,” he said, blaming his conservative predecessors for what he describes as irresponsible messaging.
He also criticized former President Park Geun-hye’s assertion that unification would be a “jackpot,” saying this kind of rhetoric would only heighten North Korea’s fear of a possible invasion by the South.
Lee emphasized that his administration has no intention of pursuing unification by absorption, stressing instead that dialogue and negotiation are his preferred approach for achieving peaceful coexistence between the two Koreas.
But if South Korea continues to lose time by repeating this harmful cycle of policy reversals, it will only work in North Korea’s favor. Pyongyang will continue developing its nuclear and missile programs, becoming an even greater threat to international security. Now is the moment to break this cycle.