In an article on the failure of Donald Trump’s impeachment, the author noted that the next marker which will determine the development of the situation on the Korean Peninsula may be the course and scale of the annual US-South Korean joint military exercises, which were usually held in March and served as the traditional ‘spring fever.’
In 2019, while still in détente, Seoul and Washington decided to stop their large-scale spring exercises, titled Key Resolve and Foal Eagle, and instead conducted a modified command-post exercises called Dong Maeng. But the question of what would take place in 2020 remained open.
On January 2, 2020 Seoul’s Ministry of Defense announced that South Korea and the United States would continue their joint exercise in a coordinated manner “to support efforts for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”
On January 14, 2020, during a New Year’s press conference, President Moon evaded questions about joint military exercises: “I think we need to restore momentum in North Korea-US dialogue, which is at a deadlock. We’re in agreement with the US about that, and we’ll work together on the necessary measures.”
On January 21, 2020, the spokesman for the Korean Ministry of Defense announced that Seoul and Washington were adjusting the plan for a joint exercise this year to support diplomatic efforts to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. Regimental-level maneuvers would be cancelled, but battalion-level exercises are to be conducted as planned. Key Resolve and Foal Eagle will be conducted via computer simulation, just like last year.
The start of the joint command-post exercise was scheduled for March 9. The interesting part here was not only in the scale of the exercises, but what they would include. After all, back on March 14, 2019, the analytical website NK News published an interesting piece, reporting that the armed forces of the Republic of Korea “are preparing for the coming changes in politics and the military situation.” The news article spoke about a new deployment of forces on the Korean Peninsula, which would allow them ‘to respond adequately to the potential threat from neighboring countries’, including China, Japan and Russia.
However, the most interesting detail of the plan was quite transparent hints at a possible unification of North and South Korea: they say that ‘the length of the Republic of Korea’s borders will increase in the future’, and it will be necessary to deploy troops on a much larger area.
Interviews with several South Korean experts in mid-February revealed that, despite the smaller scale, the exercises would not be defensive in nature, but aimed at practicing such drills as the elimination of the top leadership of DPRK by the forces of the South Korean unit specifically created for this very purpose.
Of course, such an ‘attack on the highest dignity’ would hardly be favorably received by Pyongyang. But it is much more interesting how South Korean experts tried to justify the reason for this structure of exercises. It turns out that it is linked to other aspects of US-South Korean military cooperation, namely the amount of spending on the maintenance of the American military contingent in the territory of South Korea. The US requires a fivefold increase in said budget, but agreeing to the USA’s demands to conduct offensive-type exercises gives Seoul a chance to get a discount on the fee.
However, there exists another viewpoint, according to which the proposal to work on the elimination of Kim Jong-un in exchange for greater favors in financial matters was initiated not by the US, but by South Korea. This was done due to two reasons. First, South Korea believes that the USA’s demand for higher spending is an attempt to ‘make Moon pay’ for his ‘pro-North Korean policy.’ And if Seoul shows that it isn’t pro-North, the American side will give up these demands. Secondly, it’s a matter of domestic politics, in particular, the problems that surround the relationship between President Moon and the South Korean army leadership.
Since the South Korean army is a stronghold of conservatives, President Moon is, on the one hand, trying to squeeze his political opponents out of there for fear of a military coup and, on the other, he’s attempting to gain the support of the generals and the military complex as a whole, flooding them with money. As a result, under a democratic president, military spending is at a level conservatives hadn’t ever dreamed of, and much of it goes to the development and acquisition of new offensive-type weapons.
In these conditions, it seemed appropriate to prepare for writing new materials about yet another round of ‘spring fever’, but the coronavirus epidemic interfered, having virtually spiraled out of control in the past two weeks. As of February 28 (the time of this article’s writing), South Korea has registered 2,337 citizens infected with the COVID-19, 13 of which have died. The number of those infected in the South Korean armed forces is 26, and about 10 thousand soldiers are currently under quarantine. Members of US contingent have also fallen ill, and on February 28, the US closed down the Camp Humphreys, the largest military base in South Korea, because of the outbreak.
It was impossible not to take action in this situation. On February 24, 2020, at a press conference in Washington, after talks with South Korea’s Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo, Pentagon Chief Mark Esper spoke of the possibility of reducing the scale of joint exercises due to the epidemic.
On February 27, representatives of the Combined Forces Command of South Korea and the US, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the two countries officially announced that the joint command and staff military exercises scheduled for early March have been postponed indefinitely due to the South Korean government declaring the highest level of epidemic threat.
On the same day, during a visit to the US National Defense University, Jeong Kyeong-doo said that the cancellation of the exercise between South Korea and the United States would not affect their joint preparedness. “Different from the past, we are capable of staging exercises in an adjusted manner without affecting our posture by maximizing modernized weapons systems, operational employment systems and the C4I systems (command, control, communications and computers and intelligence systems.”
According to South Korean political analysts, the indefinite suspension of exercises may de-escalate the situation on the Korean Peninsula. According to Chung Sungjang, director of the Center for North Korean Studies at the Sejong Institute, if South Korea and the US stick to their plan on conducting joint exercises, North Korea would respond with actions that could incite tensions. Other experts recalled Kim Jong-un’s New Year speech saying that the extent to which his country would increase its nuclear deterrence would depend on the USA’s position. That is, the joint exercises with South Korea would only lead to military provocations from the North.
However, it remains unclear whether this decision will help bring the stalled negotiations between North Korea and the US back on track and resume talks. The matter of the joint drills has not so much been resolved as it has been postponed. Firstly, the parties emphasize that the reason for the cancellation is not goodwill or their desire to appease the North, but the extraordinary circumstances in the form of coronavirus. Secondly, the question of altering the scale or direction of the exercises was also left hanging in the air. Of course, the coronavirus may not only be the cause but just an excuse serving as an acceptable explanation for anti-Pyongyang conservatives. But in relation to regional tensions, it is simply a pause, not an attempt to further reduce tensions.
And it probably just means that the American pause will be followed by North Korea’s, but it will only be a matter of a couple of months.
Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, Leading Research Fellow at the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of Far Eastern Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook“.
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