B.R. Myers Explains How Moon Administration Plans to Move Towards A Confederation with North Korea

Below are excerpts from some more great analysis by Professor B.R. Myers about the state of Inter-Korean affairs and the United States.  This first excerpt shows how President Moon really feels about the US-ROK alliance:

This is in line with the remarkable discretion Moon Jae-in has sustained since the start of his election campaign. Never does he speak more guardedly than when around foreigners critical of the North. Shortly after he took office I asked two Americans who had talked with him on separate occasions what impression they had got: “well-rehearsed,” said one, “well-drilled” the other. Had he given vent to the sort of anti-American, pro-North remarks Roh Moo Hyun went in for (though Roh was conservative in comparison), his policies would have encountered more resistance.

His base knows how he really feels. During the presidential election campaign in 2012 the novelist Kong Chi-yŏng, a prominent supporter, tweeted cheerfully that the Yankee-go-home candidate Lee Jung-Hee sounded “like Moon’s inner voice.” The conservatives pounced, and she had to do a quick Prufrock: It wasn’t what she’d meant at all. Since then the Moon camp has shown remarkable discipline. Professor Moon Chung-in is an exception of sorts, since it’s his job to send up trial balloons.  [B.R. Myers]

I have long believed that President Moon is just a better polished, smarter, and more disciplined version of former President Roh Moo-hyun.  Remember Moon was Roh’s Chief of Staff during his presidency, so learned well from all of Roh’s mistakes.  This discipline and political smarts he learned has allowed Moon to sell himself as a centrist when he is in fact a leftist.

This next excerpt shows how the Moon administration plans to implement their confederation plans with North Korea:

To assume that the two Korean administrations do not already see each other as confederates, and behave accordingly, albeit discreetly, is like assuming that a man and woman planning a marriage are not yet having sex. When we ask for Moon’s help in getting the other half of the peninsula to denuclearize, we are in effect asking this fervent nationalist to help remove the future guarantor of a unified Korea’s security and autonomy. Why should he comply? The only remaining point of the US-ROK alliance is to ease the transition to a confederation — which would obviate that alliance altogether.

The recent news of South Korean violations of sanctions (and of a presidential award just given to the main importer of North Korean coal) is merely illustrative. It’s trivial in comparison to the basic truth staring us in the face: No true liberal-democratic ally of the United States would think of leaguing up with an anti-American dictatorship, let alone one still in the thrall of a personality cult. I’m not sure whether the Trump administration is unaware of this or merely pretending to be.

At any rate a peculiar pattern has repeated itself every few weeks or so since Moon took office. It goes like this. First the Blue House is caught in some statement or act of disloyalty to the spirit of the alliance — like appointing an unrepentant former enforcer of North Korean copyrights to the second most powerful post in the government. (I don’t mean the prime minister.) South Korean conservatives then shout in chorus, “The Americans won’t stand for this!” Whereupon the White House rushes to say, in effect, “Oh yes we will!” It seems to revel in making pro-American, security-minded South Koreans look foolish.  (…….)

It’s therefore easy to imagine Trump or Pompeo expressing support for whatever “peace system” Moon and Kim happen to agree on, so long as progress toward denuclearization is made first. Any significant step in that direction — which we can expect the upcoming Pyongyang summit to announce with great fanfare — would then compel the US to sign off on  confederation, thus encouraging the South Korean public to do likewise. Before we know it, the ROK could be locked in an embrace it might eventually need American help to get out of.  [B.R. Myers]

As always I highly recommend reading the whole article from Professor Myers at the link, but at some point you would think the Trump administration would start pushing back on President Moon’s pro-North Korean agenda.  Possibly the suspension of Inter-Korean railway inspections by the United Nations Command is the start of a push back?