Mon, Oct 15, 2018 page6

• Walter Lohman On Taiwan: What’s wrong with peace on the Korean Peninsula?

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  The third summit between the leaders of South and North Korea and the prospect of a second next month between Presidents Trump and Kim Jong-un has many well-meaning people in Seoul — and some in Washington — yearning for a permanent end to the state of war on the Peninsula. In the face of resistance to this, they wonder, “How can anyone be opposed to peace?”

  The answer is that hope is racing far ahead of reality. If left unchecked — and indeed, if the desire for peace is prematurely memorialized in a “peace declaration,” as proposed last week by the South Korean Foreign Minister — the actual prospects for peace will shrink. The US and its allies will be left more vulnerable, not less — notwithstanding her suggestion that such a declaration be made in exchange for North Korea dismantling its principal nuclear facility at Yongbyon.

  Let’s take a step back and look at exactly what America’s goal is in the diplomatic processes set in motion by President Trump’s historic meeting with Kim Jong-un in June of this year. It is not a resolution of the state of war in Korea. That condition and the 28,500 American servicemen and women who guarantee the armistice there are the result of the North’s hostility to the South’s way of life and the critical ally that helps protect it — the US.

  

  That hostility remains — notwithstanding the handshakes and the smiles in Pyongyang recently, or in Singapore this past June. The raison d’etre of North Korea is the unification of the Korean Peninsula — on its terms. Pursuit of nuclear weapons is an essential part of the effort to bring this about.

  It is a pretty simple formula. With nuclear weapons capable of reaching the US mainland, Pyongyang can deter the US from coming to the aid of South Korea in a conflict. The mere existence of such capability is intended to make South Koreans ask themselves, “Would America risk Los Angeles or Chicago to defend Seoul?”

  There are two possible American responses to this question.

  The first abandons South Korea and tries to take the US out of harm’s way. This in turn would open the way for Kim Jong-un to attempt reunification by force or intimidation. Beyond the devastating impact this would have on life in South Korea, such a course of action would take an enormous toll on the credibility of American security commitments across the board, including most notably, those to Taiwan. It would leave South Korea to the tender mercies of a proven pathological dictator and Japan susceptible to nuclear blackmail.

  The second solution stays on the front lines with our allies and mitigates the risk to the homeland by making clear the use of nuclear weapons by North Korea would result in the utter destruction of its regime. It is not always a pretty approach — remember Trump’s vow to destroy North Korea at the United Nations last year — but it keeps the peace. In the meantime, the world brings maximum pressure to bear on North Korea with the aim of convincing it to relinquish its nuclear weapons.

  This is the only way to sustain the peace and security broadly and over the long term. To its credit, the Trump administration gets this. This is why it has made denuclearization of North Korea the clear goal of its diplomatic opening to Pyongyang.

  What both Washington and Seoul, however, must understand is that a “peace declaration” is simply a back door to the first scenario and all the costs it entails. A document that declares the Korean War over will create an irresistible case for withdrawal of American forces. After all, if the war is over, the American public will ask, “Why should the US continue to station troops there? For that matter, what is the use of the US-Korea alliance?” Without any conditions to eliminate the massive conventional threat North Korea poses to the South, war on the peninsula would be more likely.

  At the same time, such “progress” would not remove the nuclear threat to the United States. North Korea would continue to possess — and if it chose to do so, proliferate — nuclear weapons and it will have given dictatorships around the world a blueprint for imposing their wills on Washington. Neither would a “peace declaration” preclude the possibility of the US returning to the peninsula once war commences — as it did in 1950. No, a “peace declaration” can only come at the end of the process, when North Korea is completely, verifiably, irreversibly rid of its nuclear weapons, and its conventional threat to South Korea is reduced. Dismantling the Yongbyon facility is far from enough.

  No one in the US wants war. But as history has shown, signing pieces of paper and making solemn declarations do not prevent it — especially when they leave the potential enemy in possession of its arsenal. War is avoided and freedom is secured by staying strong even in the face of hope. One day, a permanent peace will come to the Korean Peninsula, but only when the real threats from North Korea are finally eliminated.

  Walter Lohman is director of the Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center.
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