Here is what a Yonsei professor who is an expert in international relations had to say about the incoming Trump administration:
Moon Chung-in, Yonsei University professor emeritus
Hankyoreh (Hani): Can you describe in broad strokes how the Trump administration will affect the Korean Peninsula?
Moon Chung-in (Moon): The Korean Peninsula policy won‘t be taking shape until April or May, when all the assistant secretaries have been appointed and confirmed. There are a lot of variables. But the main question is whether the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia” policy will be retained, since that is linked to the global strategy the Trump administration comes up with. One has to bear in mind that Trump will reconsider the alliances according to his “America first” policy and that he’s more interested in geoeconomics [than geopolitics]. It’s also important to remember that Trump has a tendency to acknowledge what is called the Chinese and Russian sphere of influence, so he‘s not on the same page as the geopolitical strategy of checking and blockading China.
Hani: What kind of changes do you expect for the South Korea-US alliance?
Moon: Trump is blunt about the alliances. He has called out South Korea, Japan, NATO, Germany and Saudi Arabia for getting a “free ride.” He has a strong sense that the US is the benefactor and that its allies are the beneficiaries. The primary issue is adjusting how much of the joint cost of the South Korea-US alliance is covered by the two sides. First is defense burden sharing. South Korea spends 2.4% of its GDP on defense, and Trump could ask it to increase this to the US level of 4.3%. Second is defense cost sharing related to US Forces in Korea. South Korea is covering around 50%, and Trump could ask it to cover as much as 100% of this. These adjustments could be complicated by resistance inside South Korea. If a progressive government comes to power in South Korea, the question of pushing forward the transfer of wartime operational control [of South Korean troops to South Korea] would be sure to come up. Trump is likely to say that South Korea can have it right now if it wants it. He tends to act on instinct and impulse. [Hankyoreh]
The South Korean defence ministry said Wednesday’s agreement — which comes four years after a similar attempt failed — would allow it to benefit from Japan’s advanced intelligence-gathering equipment, which includes five satellites, four radar systems, six Aegis destroyers and 77 patrol aircraft.
But the deal was met with stinging criticism from South Korea’s opposition, which called it a “rush job”.
Ms Park’s opponents say the ongoing political scandal has undermined her mandate to push through policy. Some South Koreans also feel Japan has not sufficiently atoned for its wartime atrocities on the peninsula.
“I don’t understand why the government is so hastily pursuing such an agreement. It has been done procedurally wrong,” said Moon Chung-in, a professor at Yonsei University in Seoul. “If a new government relinquishes the agreement, relations [with Japan] will become worse. I just don’t understand it.” [Financial Times]
You can read much more at the link, but leave it to the Korean opposition to claim that 4 years to get this deal done is a “rush job”. What I think has happened is that due to the Choi Soon-sil scandal, President Park no longer has anything politically to lose by signing this deal considering how unpopular she already is.
Yes it is probably a good idea to plan for a provocation cycle after the New Year because it is does not appear any denuclearization deal is close to being negotiated:
Chung Eui-yong (C), head of Cheong Wa Dae’s national security office, makes opening remarks, with Chief of Staff Noh Young-min (L) and Kim Sang-jo, the top presidential official for policy, standing next to him at the Cheong Wa Dae press center on Nov. 10, 2019.
The United States is trying hard to coax North Korea into restarting nuclear talks, as South Korea is also quite “serious” about the year-end deadline set by Pyongyang, a top Cheong Wa Dae official said Sunday.
The North has emphasized that the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump should change tack and put forward fresh offers based on a “new calculation method” by the end of this year or face an end to the already troubled dialogue process itself.
Regarding the North’s own deadline, “The South Korean government is also keeping an eye on (relevant situations) quite seriously,” Chung Eui-yong, head of the presidential security office, told reporters. (…….)
South Korea is also coordinating closely with the U.S. so that denuclearization talks can proceed smoothly, getting “various contingency plans” ready for use, he said without elaborating.
The South Korean government’s position is that security conditions on the peninsula should never return to the level before 2017.
You can read more at the link, but I would not be surprised if the Moon administration’s response to a North Korean provocation would be to unilaterally violate sanctions to pay off the Kim regime and say it is for humanitarian reasons.
Over at One Free Korea he has an interesting posting up that I recommend everyone read where he discusses whether US Forces Korea (USFK) should be withdrawn from the peninsula:
To save Korea’s democracy, withdraw its American security blanket
Most Korea-watchers will view the recent hints from both Seoul and Washington about a U.S. withdrawal with alarm, and as a grave risk to the security of both Korea and Japan. Indeed, it’s one more development that’s consistent with my hypothesis that Pyongyang means to coerce and cajole Seoul into submission, first by lowering the South’s defenses, and later by ruling it through an inter-Korean confederation that it will use to suppress dissent, neutralize it as a political and military threat, and loot its resources without the burdens of war, occupation, or cultural pollution. The Panmunjom agreement will fuel Pyongyang’s expectations of collaboration by a government in Seoul that prioritizes ethno-nationalism and appeasement over the protection (much less the propagation) of liberal democratic values. […….]
If the arc of Korean history bends toward capitulation, the continuing presence of American forces is less likely to bend it back than soothe into passivity those Koreans who still can. Our presence would only create a false sense of security and quell any sense of alarm that the Blue House is consenting to a quiet capitulation of the freedom and prosperity their parents and grandparents won at such a terrible cost. Maybe the U.S. presence is contributing to the clearest and most present danger to Koreans’ security by obstructing the concentration of their minds, by retarding their development of a confident sense of nationhood, and by excusing them from the grim burdens of sisu.
Can America do anything to bend that arc back? One answer might be to present Koreans with a stark choice and a referendum. So let President Trump go to his summit with His Porcine Majesty, and soon. Let him hear Kim Jong-un’s offer. Then, let him — and John Kelly, John Bolton, Jim Mattis, and Mike Pompeo — explain to us why those terms are tantamount to surrender, why Moon was a fool or worse[10] for agreeing to them, and that while South Korea is free to surrender itself, we would rather retrench ourselves in Japan than subsidize frivolous policies that undermine our own security. [One Free Korea]
I highly recommend reading the whole thing at the link, but I have long believed that there has been peace in Northeast Asia since the end of the Korean War because of the balancing influence that the US military provides to the region. However, that doesn’t mean we need all the troops currently in South Korea if real concessions are made by the North Koreans.
For example if the Kim regime removes the vast majority of their troops and artillery positions along the DMZ would USFK still need to have the 2nd Infantry Division forward deployed in Korea? Would the Air Force need as many aircraft stationed there to take out those artillery positions? That is why I think this argument needs to be influenced by real actions by North Korea not pretend ones, which is all we have seen so far from the Kim regime.
