Security In Korea

War, Stalemate, And Negotiation

Phil Williams, Donald M Goldstein

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9780367286958
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000311112
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

An erratic, aging North Korean leadership intent on dynastic succession and development of nuclear weapons is attracting a lot of attention in the Asia-Pacific Region -- an area of utmost importance to the United States. Current concerns about security in Korea provide the backdrop to this volume, which offers an overview of the evolution of security on the Korean peninsula and an assessment of the U.S. role there from the 1940s to the present. A distinctive feature of this volume is the long historical perspective that is brought to bear on contemporary security dilemmas. The renowned contributors examine U.S. policy prior to and during the Korean War and look at the subsequent changes in U.S. commitment to South Korea during a period of global stalemate that had been shaped in part by the war itself. The authors then assess the future of U.S.-Korean relations within the context of the changing international environment, considering the prospects for future strife, the merits of a cooperative security system, and the possibility of reunification.

1
Security in Korea: The Road Less Traveled

Phil Williams, Donald M. Goldstein, and Henry L Andrews, Jr.

Korea is often described as the "land of the morning calm." Its history, however, particularly during the twentieth century, has been one of conquest and competition, partition and war. In some respects, the reason for this is simple: Korea has been the victim of a location with immense geopolitical significance. The competition between China and Japan that has been perhaps the most enduring characteristic of international relations in Northeast Asia has frequently manifested itself in a struggle for the control of the Korean peninsula. During the Cold War, this rivalry was overshadowed by that between the United States and its allies on the one side and the Soviet Union and, for a while at least, China on the other. For its part, Korea not only remained the victim, but also became one of the few areas where the Cold War developed into a hot war. The players had changed, but the game remained the same — geopolitical and military struggle for the control of the peninsula.

The division of North and South Korea after the Second World War was initially intended to be part of a temporary trusteeship. With independent and mutually antithetical governments established above and below die thirty-eighth parallel, however, it was perhaps inevitable that both the North and South would make efforts to reunify the country. Neither government granted the other legitimacy or seemed willing to accept a compromise. If efforts at reunification by force were inevitable, they nevertheless encountered the reluctance of either side in the Cold War to accept forcible changes in the territorial status quo. The North Korean invasion of June 1950 elicited United States entry into the war, while the United States effort (after the Inchon landing) to unify Korea under United Nations auspices precipitated Chinese intervention and a U.S. military disaster that was unprecedented.

The final result was a military armistice rather than a peace settlement The continued political stalemate on the peninsula was characterized by high levels of tension and animosity, punctuated by occasional incidents across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Vitriolic denunciations became ritualized, but occasionally spilled over into minor incidents and full-blown crises such as that precipitated in 1968 by the North Korean seizure of the U.S.S. Pueblo.

Although the division between North and South Korea was a consequence of the Cold War, the end of the Cold War has not brought with it an end to the stalemate in Korea. The governments of North and South Korea have instituted a dialogue, but the peninsula remains partitioned, militarized, and volatile — a stubborn remnant of the bipolar confrontation. The dramatic restructuring of global power and alignment since 1989 —even though it has brought with it new uncertainties and problems — has alleviated certain dangers. Global and regional issues no longer have to be viewed through the harsh lens of superpower rivalry. Yet, at the end of 1993, Korea remained high on the list of regional security problems, representing one of the major flashpoints in a world where violence and instability appear to be at least as pervasive as during the Cold War. Moreover, in some respects, the situation may be even more dangerous than it was when Moscow and Washington drew clear lines of demarcation, reduced the opportunities for miscalculation, and imposed a degree of control over their clients that moderated their behavior, if not always their rhetoric. The end of the Cold War has eroded the inhibitions on client states and reduced the ability of great powers to impose restraint Consequently, the situation in Northeast Asia has become even more problematic.

Perhaps even more serious than the loosening of external restraints has been the North Korean nuclear program and Pyongyang's reluctance to abide by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and permit the requisite inspections of its nuclear facilities that are an essential part of the accompanying safeguards system. Given the importance attached by the Clinton Administration to dealing with the problem of nuclear proliferation, it is not surprising that, at the end of 1993, the situation in Korea vied with health care and other domestic issues for the attention of the President and his chief advisors.

With the continued disarmament of Iraq, the North Korean nuclear program provided the most immediate and important item on the proliferation agenda It was even more compelling because of fundamental questions about the stability of the regime in North Korea and the possibility of an impending succession crisis. Not only was the situation in Korea itself volatile, but the possibility that the North Korean acquisition of nuclear weapons would spark off a regional arms race involving japan (as well as South Korea) provided a nightmare both for states in the region and for the United States — which saw itself as the key balancing wheel and stabilizer in East Asia.

North Korea has become a test case of the ability of the United States and the international community to deal effectively with both pariah states and the prospect of nuclear proliferation. Yet, the elevation of the stakes involved in developments on the Korean peninsula is far from new. In June 1950, the North Korean attack on South Korea was interpreted as a change in Communist tactics that marked a new and more dangerous phase in the Cold War. U.S. military involvement was seen as the only way to save South Korea and convey Washington's determination to stand up to Communism and prevent further aggression elsewhere. The prevailing metaphor was one of falling dominoes.

The current metaphor is proliferating dominoes. Although less explicit than its predecessor, the metaphor is clearly discernible in the United States reaction to the North Korean nuclear program. If, on one hand, North Korea is persuaded to remain a member of the non-proliferation regime and abandon its aspirations to acquire nuclear weapons (weapons that some assessments at the end of 1993 suggested Pyongyang had already acquired), this will augur well for further efforts to contain proliferation. If, on the other hand, the mixture of pressures and inducements fails, then this could open the nuclear floodgates. This, at least, is the dominant assessment

There is perhaps another dimension which makes the evolution of security relations on the Korean peninsula even more fascinating. The juxtaposition of two regimes, one of which represents the Cold War fixation with military power and the other which symbolizes economic dynamism in East Asia and the shift from geopolitics to geoeconomics, provides an intriguing overlay to a regional conflict that was a product of the Cold War. There is a sense, therefore, in which events in Korea can no more be seen in isolation now than they could during the Cold War.

Purpose and Scope

The increased salience of security issues in Korea provides the backdrop to this volume, the aim of which is to provide an overview both of the evolution of security on the Korean peninsula and of the United States' role there from the late 1940s to the mid-1990s. The analysis comes at a time when some of the conventional interpretations have been reassessed. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the opening up of archives in Moscow, the release of Chinese material about the war, and the availability of information in the United States under the Freedom of Information Act are contributing to this process of reassessment The new information has offered different insights to scholars, particularly regarding the onset of the war and Chinese intervention. Even before some of the most recent research, however, the Korean War, like every other war in U.S. history, had been subject to reassessment and reinterpretation.

Revisionist scholarship has been exemplified most obviously in the work of Bruce Cumings, who has argued very skillfully that the roots of the conflict in Korea were domestic and that the Korean War was essentially a civil war that the United States transformed into part of its global conflict with Moscow. Although this position is not fully exemplified by the analyses in this book, there is no attempt by the contributors to hide the mistakes and miscalculations made by the United States, whether prior to the Korean War, during it, or in its aftermath. Several authors focus on the vagaries of United States policy, highlighting mistakes such as the failure to deter the North Korean attack in June 1950 and, even more significant, the subsequent failure to obtain early warning of the Chinese entry and to take the necessary action to avoid it In chapter nine, the Carter Administration's decision to withdraw United States ground forces from South Korea is explored, along with the pressures that led to the reversal of this decision.

One of the distinctive features of this volume is that it not only focuses on U.S. policy prior to and during the war, but also looks at the subsequent evolution of the commitment to South Korea during a period of global stalemate that had been shaped in part by the outcome and consequences of the Korean War. In addition, it examines the future of the U.S. relationship with South Korea within the context of a changed international environment The contributors also explore the competing impulses towards cooperation and conflict on the Korean peninsula. The prospects for future conflict are considered, but so too are those for the establishment of a cooperative security system. Attention is also given to the prospects for reunification. The volume itself is divided into three sections. The focus of section one is the war itself. Section two deals with the consequences and aftermath of the Korean War. The third section offers both a current snapshot and a look ahead.

The War

Korean scholar Kim Chull Baum explores United States policy between the end of hostilities in 1945 and the North Korean invasion in June 1950. Kim focuses on the conflict between the State Department (which wanted to safeguard South Korea) and a military establishment (which was overcommitted and saw involvement in South Korea as replete with risks rather than opportunities) that preferred to disengage from South Korea. As he shows, the internal battle centered around the formulation and implementation of National Security Council Decision Paper-8 (NSC-8). After losing the battle over the place of South Korea in United States priorities, the State Department attempted to stall the withdrawal as long as possible. The delaying tactics could only work for so long and South Korea, in effect, was abandoned to its fate. The ultimate irony of American policy is that the North Korean attack — because it was seen as Soviet-inspired and supported — transformed Korea from a low to a high priority. Had the State Department prevailed and the United States security commitment been maintained, this attack might have been prevented.

If United States policy prior to the war had serious shortcomings, so too did the conduct of the war, particularly during the first year. These shortcomings are highlighted in the chapter by the eminent historian, Clay Blair, who provides a valuable overview of the conflict Placing the United States response within the overall strategy of containment, Blair draws interesting parallels with the war against the insurgents in Greece. Perhaps the most significant part of his analysis, however, deals with MacArthur, who, in Blair's judgment, threw wholly unprepared forces into the fight in an effort to stop the North Korean offensive. Even the Inchon landing did not fully redeem MacArthur, followed as it was by a badly misconceived offensive into the North. Indeed, it was not until Matthew Ridgway took over from MacArthur that Blair believes the performance of the United States military in Korea was adequate to the challenges that were faced.

One of the consequences of MacArthur's advance into the North was the Chinese intervention. This is explored by Allen S. Whiting, a noted China expert, who considers the events surrounding the intervention, with particular attention to whether Washington and Beijing were the victims of misperceptions or miscalculations. Whiting poses important questions about the inevitability of conflict between China and the United States in Korea. He explores the problems of communication stemming from the absence of formal diplomatic relations between the two countries and, even more important, the huge ideological division between them. Whiting's chapter also contains an intriguing and indeed a persuasive argument that, in October 1950, there were several squandered opportunities for a reassessment by both China and the United States, which might have enabled them to avoid the carnage of the next two and a half years.

A major difficulty for the United States, of course, was that Korea very quickly became a highly politicized issue in the American domestic arena. Both the reasons for this and the consequences are skillfully highlighted by the renowned political scientist, John Spanier, who focuses on the links between military events on the peninsula and developments in Washington. As well as elucidating the reasons for the United States intervention, Spanier discusses the difficulties the United States faced in coming to terms with limited war, a form of conflict that was alien to the American tradition. Spanier shows how this sentiment combined with the Republican support for MacArthur in ways that encouraged the decision to attempt to reunify Korea. He also highlights the way in which MacArthur overstepped the bounds of military command, giving Truman little choice but to dismiss him.

Thomas Allen, a Ridgway Center associate and doctoral candidate in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh, concentrates not on the conduct of the war per se, but on the way in which it was brought to an end. He suggests that the military gridlock in the summer of 1952 was accompanied by a diplomatic impasse largely because of a dispute over the terms under which prisoners of war (POW) would be repatriated. Allen also explores the issue of nuclear coercion and suggests that atomic threats against China were less decisive in bringing the war to an end than a variety of other factors, including resolution of the POW issue and the general war-weariness of the belligerents.

The Consequences

Brought to an end in 1953, the Korean War had significant, long-term consequences for East-West relations and for United States' foreign and military policies. It not only encouraged the militarization of containment in Europe but also the extension of containment to Asia where it was manifested most obviously in the war in Vietnam. It also led to an enduring commitment to the security of South Korea, the very thing that the State Department had pushed for without success in the 1940s. The chapters in this section explore all these aspects of the war's aftermath.

Three Ridgway Center members team up to identify a variety of direct effects of the Korean War. Director Phil Williams, National Defense Fellow Henry L. Andrews, Jr., and graduate student Peter D. Duerst focus not only on great power relations, but also on the consequences of the war for the balance between presidential and congressional prerogatives in foreign policy. Attention is also given to the way in which Korea legitimized high levels of US. military spending as the best way to counter the Soviet threat

One of the lessons of Korea, of course, was that the United States should not fight wars on the Asian Confinent. Entry into such conflicts was easy, but extrication was difficult. Yet, this lesson was lost in the 3, as the United States deepened its involvement in Vietnam. Some analysts have argued that there are important similarities between Korea and Vietnam. Military historian Ronald H. Spector, in a careful comparison of the two wars, suggests that these similarities should not be overdrawn and the differences are at least as numerous and of greater consequence.

The final chapter of this section of the book deals with the continuing commitment of the United States to South Korea and the attempt by the Carter Administration to disengage, at least partially, from this commitment through the withdrawal of American ground forces from the peninsula. Joseph R. Wood, a former associate professor of political science at the U.S. Air Force Academy, explores the initial reasons for this decision and explains why it was reversed. Particular attention is given to the critical role of intelligence assessments of North Korean military strength. Wood shows how new estimates of the North's military strength — achieved through innovative analysis — changed the domestic balance of political forces in the United States in favor of those who wanted to maintain the status quo. The forces of continuity prevailed over those wanting change.

Beyond Stalemate

The chapters in Hie final section of this volume look at both the present situation in Korea and at future possibilities. Phil Williams considers die future of the United States commitment to South Korea. Starting with a conceptual analysis of commitment, Williams highlights both the factors maintaining the United States commitment and the pressures for change. Considerable attention is given to the Bush Administration's enunciation of a new rationale for maintaining a smaller U.S. military presence in the Asia-Pacific region, a rationale that seems to have been accepted in full by the Clinton Administration. The analysis then focuses specifically on South Korea in an effort to delineate continued United States interests in stability on the peninsula and to assess the likelihood of significant change in United States policy.

While opinion-makers in Washington assess the strategic importance of South Korea and ways of mitigating the challenge posed by the North Korean nuclear program, United States military planners in Korea have the more prosaic task of preparing for the worst Knowing that in the event of another outbreak of hostilities, United States forces in the theater would have to defend South Korea against a formidable military offensive, the people former Ridgway Center National Defense Fellow William F. Smith calls the "warfighters" are very naturally concerned with the minutiae of the military balance and the way in which hostilities might start Their distinct perspective is enunciated by Smith in an analysis that uses as a benchmark the policy enshrined in the "East Asia Strategic Initiative" of the Department of Defense. Smith looks at the assumptions and objectives of the United States and suggests that plans for future force reductions do not fully accord with the professional assessments of military members in Korea who have the responsibility for defense in the event deterrence fails.

Smith also points out that although some improvements have taken place in the political climate between North and South Korea, the trends in the military balance remain unfavorable. The question for the future, therefore, concerns the extent to which these trends can be mitigated by moves towards more cooperative security arrangements, both at the regional level and on the peninsula itself. This is considered in the chapter by Ambassador James E.Goodby who explores the way in which a multilateral security structure in Northeast Asia involving the great powers might enhance the prospects for the peaceful reunification of Korea Arguing that Asia has had limited experience with "multilateral diplomatic machinery," Goodby not only identifies the barriers to security in Korea, but also considers how these impediments might be removed in ways that would contribute to the establishment of an enduring and stable peace.

Much, of course, will depend on the behavior of the great powers. This emerges very clearly in the chapter by Gerald Segal, editor of The Pacific Review, who is somewhat less hopeful about the construction of cooperative security arrangements. Recognizing that Korea has long been "a focus of great power politics," Segal contends that, in response, the Koreans have conducted foreign affairs not only with a curious "mix ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface: Matthew Ridgway and the Korean War
• Acknowledgments
• Map of Korea
• 1 Security in Korea: The Road Less Traveled
• PART ONE The War
• PART TWO The Consequences
• PART THREE Beyond Stalemate
• List of Acronyms
• Selected Bibliography of the Korean War
• About the Book
• About the Contributors
• Index