Trump offered to scale down the Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise (carried out annually by the US Forces in Korea (USFK) and Republic of Korea (ROK) military). In Trumpian style, the decision was framed as everything all at once: punishment against South Korea for its tepid response on Iran; and as a conciliatory gesture to North Korea. And, the decision, in Trumpian fashion, fell flat on its face. Rather than feeling the pressure, the Lee Administration embraced the decision. Rather than embracing the decision as a conciliatory gesture, North Korea rejected it. So, what happened?
First of all, it’s important to note that Lee’s Democratic Party has always attempted to improve inter-Korean relations. Reducing the scale of USFK-ROK military exercises was always one way to achieve this. If Korean Democratic Party administrations don’t explicitly ask for a scaling down from the US, it is for fear of raising eyebrows in the US and triggering backlash among South Korea’s conservatives. From Lee’s perspective, Trump reducing the scale of the military exercises is not a punishment. It’s a gift.
Why has North Korea rejected this gesture as insufficient? Well, first of all, the haphazard, last minute (the day before) aspect of the decision marks it more as a tacked on after thought rather than a well placed gesture. Nonetheless, in the past North Korea embraced such small gestures.
This is because military exercises have a social impact on North Korea. A simple hypothetical elucidates this point. If China together with Canada conducted military exercises with tens of thousands of soldiers using live ammunition and simulating decapitation tactics against the White House, it’s hard to imagine the US going about its day dismissing the military exercises as a routine measure to freshen up military readiness. After all, as the Center for Strategic and International Studies notes: an actual attack could start off masked as an exercise.
If the US would feel threatened in such a scenario, then North Korea feels the very real threat exponentially more. Not only does the United States have the strongest military in the world, South Korea’s military budget is 27 times greater. Furthermore, North Korea still remembers the utter destruction the US inflicted upon it. US planes dropped more bombs during the Korean war—overwhelmingly in North Korea—than in all of the Pacific Theater combined. By 1952, there were no targets for US planes to bomb.
And while the Ulchi Freedom Shield and the Freedom Shield exercises are the biggest, military exercises against North Korea are carried all year round. The largest of these exercises put North Korea into maximum alert bringing its society to a halt. This is because North Korea’s military isn’t simply for defense, they are also employed in construction and in industry. Furthermore, counter-measures have to be mobilized, expending even more of its energy and resources.
So, if it accepted these gestures in the past, why did North Korea reject it this time? This can partly be explained by the dramatic improvement in North Korea’s geopolitical and economic position in the region. As the US-led San Francisco System of regional bilateral alliances and NATO are fracturing the world into competing blocs, North Korea consolidated a “blood alliance” with Russia by sending North Korean troops to Russia. As a result, the once crippling US sanctions can no longer isolate and pressure North Korea. In other words, as North Korea aligns with China and Russia, the US leverage and pressure against it decreases. In fact, North Korea’s economy is booming.
Faced with his disastrous war in Iran, Trump is trying to win some PR points before the US November election. In the long-run, he wants to pull North Korea away from China’s camp. Yet, there is little reason for North Korea to break with these relations in exchange for promises that the US might never carry out, as history overwhelmingly shows, including Trump pulling out of negotiations with Kim Jong-un at the last minute in 2019. Furthermore, nothing guarantees that an agreement will be approved by Congress. And, even as it does, that it could survive a post-Trump Administration. The US Democrats are already showing themselves to be worse hawks against North Korea than the Trump administration.
Ultimately, none of this rules out the possibility of Trump and Kim meeting or even of coming to some sort of agreement. North Korea is a fiercely independent country that refuses to be beholden to any country. Thus, it does not want its national sovereignty dependent on any other country, even if it is Russia or China. Thus, meaningful relations with the US would allow it greater independence.
The scaling down of the USFK and ROK military exercises should be welcomed. Yet, on its own, it is simply not enough against the US history of broken promises and against the US drumming for war in the region. Ultimately, peace in Korea will have to depend on peace in the region. Peace in the region can only be achieved by dismantling the US San Francisco System of bilateral military alliances.
