President-elect, no time to lose!

By Ahn Ho-young

Earlier this year in January, through this column, I made several foreign policy recommendations for the new government. I started the column with the caveat that the new government will face daunting foreign policy challenges from day one, given the grave security and economic risks surrounding Korea presently. That caveat turned out to be true, painfully so.

On Feb. 24, Russia turned on its neighbor, Ukraine, and is presently throwing in all of its formidable military power upon such a small and vulnerable nation. It looks like literally no holds are barred in Russia's assault on Ukraine: hospitals, public buildings and civilians are being bombed; electricity and water are being cut; even nuclear reactors have been recklessly attacked.

There is a suspicion that Russia attacked civilian targets with thermobaric weapons, which are dubbed the "father of all bombs" because of their inhumane lethality. Russia even threatened the use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine and maybe the West.

The professed purpose of Russia's invasion of Ukraine is to prevent the nation from acceding to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), to force the removal of U.S. military assets deployed in former Warsaw Pact countries and to undermine NATO. If anything, the invasion of Ukraine is having just the opposite effect. Members are rallying tightly around NATO.

Germany in particular has broken the taboo and decided to send weapons to Ukraine. It also decided to increase its defense spending significantly to over 2 percent of its GDP, a decision which enjoys the support of more than 78 percent of Germany's usually pacifist citizens.

The U.N. General Assembly met in a special session on March 2, in which it adopted a resolution deploring Russia's invasion of Ukraine and calling for the immediate withdrawal of its forces. No less than 141 countries supported the resolution. However, five countries ― including North Korea ― voted no, while 35 countries, notably including China and Iran, abstained.

These developments lead us to worry that the relatively benign post-World War II order might be coming to an end. The sovereignty and territorial integrity of a nation, some of the most solemn principles so far, are being trampled upon. The nonproliferation treaty (NPT) regime, resting on the special responsibility of five nuclear powers to behave responsibly as custodians of the regime, is being ignored.

The liberal economic order is being undermined in the wake of the U.S.-China trade war and now the global financial, trade and technological sanctions on Russia. The political and economic fragmentation of the world is becoming a reality, a heavy challenge for a highly open economy like Korea's, subject to multiple security challenges, including North Korea's reckless development and possible deployment of weapons of mass destruction.

What is to be done by the new government? I already shared my views through the column cited above. Building upon the recommendations included in the column, I wish to make two related points.

First of all, my thoughts on the "lessons" to be learned from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which have been inundating Korean newspapers for the past several weeks.

An impressively large number of commentators point to the fact that none of the U.S. treaty allies has been subject to such a blatant invasion as we are observing in Ukraine. They believe that we must strengthen our own defense capability and at the same time strengthen our alliances further with the U.S. That will ensure continued security and prosperity for Korea in the years to come. For convenience's sake, I will refer to this as the "strategic clarity" view.

At the same time, I heed a smaller number of commentators arguing that Ukraine unwisely tried to join NATO, which provoked Russia, leading to the invasion. They recommend that Korea must avoid getting embroiled in Great Power politics, preserve its independence and make decisions issue by issue, depending upon the time and upon relatively narrowly defined national interests. That will best protect Korea's security and economic interests, and provide autonomy to promote peace on the Korean Peninsula. For convenience's sake, I will refer to this as the "strategic ambiguity" view.

There's one point I wish to make between these two schools of thought. I think that the "strategic ambiguity" school is right in thinking that Ukraine's efforts to join NATO led to the Russian invasion. What I wish to point out is that Ukrainians themselves clearly understood the risks involved in their efforts. Still, they set out to join NATO. It is not only Ukraine.

In fact, it is all the former Warsaw Pact countries which opted for the same path. Why? Because they observed through all those years of the Cold War that the U.S. is a unique superpower in view of the importance it attaches to universal values of human rights, the rule of law and openness, its commitment to practicing these values in international relations without having territorial ambitions. This observation encouraged them to take risks and join NATO and become allies of the U.S.

For the past 70 years, Korea has enjoyed its own alliance with the U.S., which has been so coveted by all those former members of the Warsaw Pact. The alliance has been a quintessential factor for Korea's economic, political and international advancement. Why does Korea have to distance itself from such an alliance and go for "strategic ambiguity," which will end up with Korea losing credibility with both the U.S. and countries on the other side of the now deepening fragmentation?

For the above reasons, I do not understand how the Russian invasion of Ukraine vindicates the "strategic ambiguity" view. One important explanation could be the lack of clear leadership from the government. That leads me to my second related point.

For the past several years, there has been concern expressed both in Seoul and Washington that Korea is distancing itself from the alliance with the U.S. This is no time for such suspicion to linger on any longer. The new government must act, and act in a clear and timely manner to show Korea's commitment to the alliance. Mr. President-elect, there's no time to lose!

Ahn Ho-young (hyahn78@mofa.or.kr) is the president of the University of North Korean Studies. He served as Korean ambassador to the United States and first vice foreign minister.