Ending US-South Korea Military Exercises Key to Diplomacy
January 29, 2021
Ann Wright reports that Blinken, rather than acknowledging the danger of
these exercises, has criticized their suspension as an appeasement of
Pyongyang.
2012: A South Korean soldier briefs Army Gen Martin E. Dempsey, U.S.
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on points of interest at the
demilitarized zone. (DoD, D. Myles Cullen)
By Ann Wright
Truthout
One of the thorniest foreign policy challenges the Biden administration will
need to face is a nuclear-armed North Korea. Talks between the U.S. and
North Korea have been stalled since 2019, and North Korea has continued to
develop its weapons arsenal, recently unveiling what appears to be its
largest intercontinental ballistic missile.
As a retired U.S. Army colonel and U.S. diplomat with 40 years of
experience, I know all too well how actions by the U.S. military can
exacerbate tensions that lead to war.
That's why the organization I am a member of, Veterans for Peace, is one of
several hundred civil society organizations in the U.S. and South Korea
urging the Biden administration to suspend the upcoming combined U.S.-South
Korea military exercises.
Due to their scale and provocative nature, the annual U.S.-South Korea
combined exercises have long been a trigger point for heightened military
and political tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
These military exercises have been suspended since 2018, but Gen. Robert B.
Abrams, commander of U.S. Forces Korea, has renewed the call for the full
resumption of the joint war drills. U.S. and South Korean defense ministers
have also agreed to continue the combined exercises, and Biden's secretary
of state nominee Antony Blinken has said suspending them was a mistake.
Rather than acknowledge how these joint military exercises have proven to
raise tensions and provoke actions by North Korea, Blinken has criticized
the suspension of the exercises as an appeasement of North Korea.
And despite the failure of the Trump administration's "maximum pressure"
campaign against North Korea, not to mention decades of U.S. pressure-based
tactics, Blinken insists more pressure is what's needed to achieve North
Korea's denuclearization. In a CBS interview, Blinken said the U.S. should
"build genuine economic pressure to squeeze North Koreato get it to the
negotiating table."
Antony Blinken in 2016. (State Department, Flickr)
Unfortunately, if the Biden administration chooses to go through with the
U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises in March, it will likely sabotage
any prospect of diplomacy with North Korea in the near future, heighten
geopolitical tensions, and risk reigniting a war on the Korean Peninsula,
which would be catastrophic.
Since the 1950s, the U.S. has used the military exercises as a "show of
force" to deter a North Korean attack on South Korea. To North Korea,
however, these military exercises - with names such as "Exercise
Decapitation" - appear to be rehearsals for the overthrow of its government.
Consider that these U.S.-South Korea combined military exercises have
involved the use of B-2 bombers capable of dropping nuclear weapons,
nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines equipped with nuclear
weapons, as well as the firing of long-range artillery and other large
caliber weapons.
Thus, suspending the U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises would be a
much-needed confidence-building measure and could help restart talks with
North Korea.
At a time when the world is facing urgent humanitarian, environmental and
economic crises, the U.S.-South Korea military exercises also divert
critically needed resources away from efforts to provide true human security
through the provision of health care and the protection of the environment.
These joint exercises cost U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars and have
caused irreparable injury to local residents and damage to the environment
in South Korea.
On all sides, the ongoing tensions on the Korean Peninsula have been used to
justify massive military spending. North Korea ranks first in the world in
military spending as a percentage of its GDP. But in total dollars, South
Korea and the United States spend vastly more on defense, with the U.S.
ranking first in military spending worldwide (at $732 billion) - more than
the next 10 countries combined - and South Korea ranking tenth (at $43.9
billion). By comparison, North Korea's entire budget is just $8.47 billion
(as of 2019), according to the Bank of Korea.
Ultimately, to stop this dangerous, expensive arms race and remove the risk
of renewed war, the Biden administration should immediately reduce tensions
with North Korea by working to resolve the root cause of the conflict: the
longstanding 70-year-old Korean War. Ending this war is the only way to
achieve permanent peace and denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
