[Column] Status quo hinders a stern response

Choi Yoon-hee

The author, Ret. Admiral and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is a chair professor at Jungwon University.

As North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats escalate exponentially, an increasing number of South Koreans doubt the effectiveness of the U.S. extended deterrence strategy. The controversy is particularly fueled by the North’s acceleration in diversifying the means of nuclear attacks on the South following its focus on developing intercontinental ballistic missiles targeting the U.S. mainland. If the North fires short-range nuclear missiles or bombs with various types of delivery vehicles, including submarines and super-large multiple rocket launchers, it is nearly impossible to defend against them, as seen in our military’s failure to precisely detect the launch of a new type of “tactical guided weapons” on March 9. We must deter the North from using nuclear weapons no matter what.

The United States seems to make various efforts to open the nuclear umbrella faster and wider than before to raise the credibility of its extended deterrence. For instance, the U.S. has been ratcheting up the level of its joint drills with South Korea, as exemplified by the massive mobilization of its strategic assets, like nuclear-powered subs, stealth fighter jets and aircraft carriers, around the Korean Peninsula. At first glance, such military exercises look effective in pressuring North Korea not to conduct another nuclear test.

Such an approach has strategic limits as a reliable means for permanent deterrence. That partly explains why the controversy does not subside even after the U.S. proposed to establish a consultative body on sharing its nuclear umbrella with South Korea and Japan, followed by its presentation of ways to ensure joint planning and operating of the strategic assets to prepare for a worst-case scenario.

U.S. Army General (Ret.) Curtis Scaparrotti, former commander of U.S. Forces Korea and former commander of the Combined Forces Command (CFC); Barry Pavel, vice president and director of the National Security Research Division at the RAND Corporation; and Dr. Miyeon Oh, director of Korea Studies at John Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, all emphasize the need for the two allies to break away from the conventional wisdom that South Korea is required to passively accept the nuclear umbrella the U.S. provides to the ally. Instead, they proposed to create a new system in which South Korea can play a certain role in discussions related to U.S. strategic assets, just like the Nuclear Planning Group established in 1966 to facilitate nuclear communication between the United States and the other NATO member countries. You can deter enemy attacks only when you ensure the enemy knows your determination — and capability — to speedily execute a merciless retaliation. The combined military power of the two allies is one of the bests in the world. But Pyongyang is suspicious of their determination to put their military capabilities into action, as it believes that Seoul and Washington cannot sternly respond to its provocation due to intrinsic loopholes in the systems of the United States and the CFC.

I was relieved to see President Yoon Suk Yeol order a firm counteraction to the North’s recent aerial penetrations by drones. Unfortunately, such aggressive guidelines were unthinkable during the previous liberal administration, which did not even regard North Korea as our enemy. An order from the commander in chief must be clear and resolute as it constitutes the highest order.

Certainly, the U.S. forces that regularly conduct joint drills with our military would be no different. If so, what orders does the commander in chief in the U.S. give to the commander of the CFC? What I learned from my experience as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff working with the U.S. commander of the CFC is that the U.S. president’s guidelines are focused on preventing tensions on the peninsula — in other words, maintaining the status quo. Therefore, the U.S. commander naturally puts more weight on maintaining the truce regime than on sternly responding to the North’s provocations.

As a result, we could not strongly respond to more than 3,000 provocations from the North since the Armistice in 1953. South Korea had to endure the losses of a number of soldiers and civilians, not to mention tremendous confusion in our society. No South Korean government resolutely reacted to the North’s past provocations, such as the Jan. 21 commando attack in 1968, the Rangoon bombing in 1983, the Cheonan sinking in March 2010 and the Yeonpyeong shelling in November 2010.

The accumulation of such lethargic responses has taught North Korea the wrong lesson. After developing nuclear weapons, in particular, the recalcitrant state simply does not care about the joint deterrence by the two allies. We can endure military provocations by conventional weapons. But a nuclear provocation can annihilate all of us instantly. If the two allies take a different approach to the North’s threat, they cannot deter its nuclear threats.

The CFC guidelines on joint crisis management are also aimed at maintaining the status quo. They do not allow South Korea to make a decision on its own to respond resolutely to North Korea’s provocations. It takes at least a couple of days for the two allies to take a joint action at the North’s provocation — say, from the initial stage of notifying the situation to their command chains to a final agreement between the two heads of state. Because a nuclear attack can only be prevented by a swift and resolute action, an independent decision-making authority is needed. Once you miss the chance, you lose a chance to retaliate.

Under the Armistice, South Korea can independently respond to the North’s provocation for self-defense purposes only. U.S. strategic assets certainly have abominable power, but we have no jurisdiction over them. No matter how many strategic assets and tactical nukes the U.S. deploy in the peninsula, they will be useless if we cannot make any decision on sharing them.

In his New Year’s address, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un threatened to increase the number of nukes to destroy South Korea by nuclear attacks if necessary after defining the “puppet regime in the South” as “our main enemy.” Such clear and present danger cannot but be deterred by mutually assured destruction.

Under the condition that the North’s nuclear threats must be deterred by nuclear weapons, I propose the following. First, the two allies must resolutely deal with the North’s military provocations, even at the cost of war. Second, the U.S. must allow South Korea to share operational authority over U.S. strategic assets, including nuclear weapons, to ensure a swift and resolute response to the North’s provocation. Third, new ways of extended deterrence must satisfy the requirements mentioned above, and otherwise, South Korea’s making of its own nuclear armaments is inevitable.

The United States saved South Korea from the Korean War, and the following Korea-U.S. alliance set the foundation for Korea’s remarkable economic development. No South Koreans deny it. But since Pyongyang’s nuclear threat has crossed a point of no return, our stance toward the nuclear threat must change. The U.S. at least must convince its ally of its capability to deter the North’s nuclear attacks without question.

Only effective deterrence can change North Korea’s nuclear weapons into a nuisance. After annually spending 10 to 20 percent of its GDP in maintaining tens of thousands of warheads in the past, the Soviet Union eventually collapsed. South Korea’s destiny depends on its own decision-making authority to effectively curb the nuclear threat from the North. The dictum demands an unflinching determination from our commander in chief ahead of his state visit to the ally later this month.
Translation by the Korea JoongAng Daily staff.