By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
The new U.S. government, under the leadership of President-elect Barack Obama, will likely ask South Korea to play a larger role in maintaining and expanding their alliance, including making a bigger contribution to international peacekeeping operations, experts here said Wednesday.
The alliance between Seoul and Washington will inevitably go through some adjustment in the early stages of the Obama administration, but overall relations will remain solid, based on their shared values and national interests, they said.
Cha Doo-hyeong, a senior researcher of the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses (KIDA), said South Korea would likely face a heavier burden on joint defense affairs given Democrats, in general, put more emphasis on ``interests'' than on the ``trust'' advocated by Republicans.
``During the presidential campaign, Obama made it clear that his government would develop a `21st century strategic alliance' framework focusing more on building relations with allies based on equal partnerships than developing unilateral alliance relations,'' Cha told The Korea Times. ``That means the new U.S. administration will likely ask South Korea and other allies to do more in maintaining relations.''
The United States would likely request South Korea to re-deploy troops to Afghanistan and other frontlines worldwide where U.S. troops face conflicts, he said as an example.
Professor Park In-hee of International Relations Studies at Ewha Women's University in Seoul agreed.
``There is a possibility that the Obama administration will ask South Korea to deploy troops to Afghanistan again. That would, in some sense, help the Lee administration's efforts in improving its global status,'' the professor said. ``The government would consider the request a burden because of the abduction of South Korean nationals in Afghanistan last year but needs to consider it seriously from the perspective of strategy.''
Cha expected South Korea to face tougher negotiations with the United States on defense cost-sharing to maintain U.S. forces in South Korea and relocating U.S. bases to south of the Han River.
``I don't see any drastic changes in the Korea-U.S. alliance, but there will be, of course, some adjustments after the Obama administration reviews policies on the U.S.-Korea alliance for about six months,'' said a researcher of the state-funded KIDA.
The new White House occupant, in particular, will expedite efforts to transform a singularly focused mission to deter a North Korean attack into a relationship that looks beyond the Korean Peninsula, Cha forecast.
``I believe the new U.S. government will speed up transforming the roles and missions of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) to deal with regional and global threats,'' he said.
Such a move would also soothe North Korea, which has complained of the South Korea-U.S. combined forces' readiness by sending a message that the ``alliance is not targeting you (North Korea),'' he added.
The U.S. government has sought to give more ``strategic flexibility'' to U.S. forces on the Korean Peninsula to have them ready to be dispatched to other parts of the world.
Seoul and Washington agreed on the strategic flexibility scheme in 2006, but South Koreans are worried that USFK's possible intervention in other regional conflicts, such as the China-Taiwan disputes over the sovereignty of Taipei, could have the nation tangled in hostilities with other countries against its will.
About 28,000 U.S. soldiers are stationed here as a deterrent against North Korea, since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce, not a permanent peace treaty.
Many South Korean government officials and North Korea experts anticipated Obama's engagement approach toward North Korea will likely help resolve the deadlock with North's nuclear programs, while maintaining the six-party talks.
Professor Moon Chung-in of Yonsei University in Seoul said, ``The Obama government is expected to make efforts to seek normalizing ties with North Korea. North Korean Kim Jong-il also seems to focus on improving relations with the United States, so we can't rule out the possibility of dramatic improvement in relations between the two sides.''
Obama has emphasized ``sustained, direct, and aggressive'' engagement with North Korea and opened the possibility of meeting with Kim on the condition that the communist state fulfilled its denuclearization pledge under the six-party framework.
In an exclusive interview with The Korea Times last week, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Yu Myung-hwan also painted a bright picture of the Seoul-Washington alliance and the North's denuclearization process after the U.S. presidential election.
``The Korea-U.S. relationship has expanded to a great extent in all sectors of society, including security, politics and economy, so I don't see any big changes in the alliance that cannot be managed through dialogue, particularly under a strategic partnership,'' Yu said. ``Of course certain changes will take place in the long-term when the new (U.S.) leader takes office, but I'm sure we will be able to adapt to them.
The minister dismissed speculation that Obama's victory would isolate South Korea in relations with North Korea.
``Some are worried President-elect Obama will normalize diplomatic ties with North Korea, and its southern neighbor could be further alienated from the North instead,'' he said. ``But it's not true. The United States is a nation managed by systems and procedures, meaning it will ask for progress over the nuclear issue and improvements in the human rights conditions in North Korea before improving ties.''
He added the Seoul government was fully prepared to cooperate on the North Korean nuclear issue with the next U.S. government.