[Editorial] Halt of joint military exercises to sustain momentum of Hanoi summit

Posted on : 2019-03-04 17:14 KST Modified on : 2019-03-04 17:14 KST
The USS John C. Stennis
The USS John C. Stennis

South Korea and the US have decided that to halt their annual Key Resolve and Foal Eagle joint military exercises as of this year. The South Korean Ministry of National Defense (MND) announced on Mar. 3 that the two sides’ ministers of defense reached an agreement in a telephone conversation the day before to discontinue the two exercises in their current form and introduce downscaled exercises under a new name. It is very encouraging to see the two sides making this decision so quickly after the second North Korea-US summit held from Feb. 27-28 without an agreement. It was a clear signal that despite the uncertainty of the situation between Pyongyang and Washington, the diplomatic efforts by South Korea and the US to resolve the North Korean nuclear situation will go forward.

It’s extremely significant that South Korea and the US have taken the initiative to end their aggressive and confrontational military exercises amid the subtle developments on the Korean Peninsula. Key Resolve, which began in 1976 under the name of Team Spirit, has been held in tandem with Foal Eagle and has always provoked a backlash from North Korea. South Korea and the US have decided to hold Key Resolve on a greatly reduced scale under the name “Dongmaeng,” meaning “alliance,” and to replace the Foal Eagle exercises with battalion-level drills conducted throughout the year without any special name.

The US is also expected to continue its freeze on deploying strategic weapons to the Korean Peninsula. These are regarded as appropriate measures for sustaining the mood for dialogue while maintaining military readiness. But it’s necessary to take a cautious approach to ensure that South Korea-US joint defense capability isn’t substantially weakened.

This decision is also notable in the sense that the US has made clear that it intends to resolve this issue through dialogue with North Korea despite the failure of the Hanoi summit. During the summit, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un expressed his willingness to permanently end nuclear tests and missile launches, and US President Donald Trump said that South Korea and the US had long ago given up the idea of resuming joint military exercises. The two leaders’ understanding that the basic way to maintain their dialogue is for South Korea and the US to refrain from large-scale joint military exercises and for North Korea to refrain from nuclear and missile tests was basically once again confirmed through this measure.

Moving forward, South Korea, North Korea and the US will have to make various efforts to sustain the momentum for dialogue. On Mar. 2, Trump said that the summit hadn’t been a failure but that he’d “learned a lot” over the past few days, while North Korea’s state-run Rodong Sinmun quoted Kim as saying, “if we forged ahead hand in hand and made the most of our wisdom and patience, it would be fully possible to achieve groundbreaking developments.” During a meeting of South Korea’s national security council on Mar. 4, President Moon Jae-in discussed steps that could be taken following the Hanoi summit. It’s our hope that the three governments will learn from the failure in Hanoi and throw all their energy into finding a way to hold more exhaustive negotiations.

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