hankyoreh

U.S. Army Gen. Vincent K. Brooks

A surprise agreement between the South Korean and US presidents to postpone joint military exercises adds momentum that could propel the Korean Peninsula from the threat of war into dialogue. The key will be keeping the hard-won dialogue opportunity going after the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics have ended – which all hinges on how North Korea responds to the two sides’ decision.

In a release on Jan. 5, the South Korea-US Combined Forces Command (CFC) officially confirmed the decision to wait until after the Pyeongchang Games to hold the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercises, which the two sides have staged jointly every year. CFC spokesperson Col. Robert Manning said the postponement was intended to allow the South Korean and US militaries to focus on maintaining security for a “safe and successful Olympics.” South Korean President Moon Jae-in and US President Donald Trump similarly mentioned a safe and successful Olympics as the reason for their surprise agreement to postpone the joint exercises. There’s a reason behind this.

Fundamentally, the “dual freeze” framework proposed by China and Russia as a solution to the North Korean nuclear issue – simultaneous halts of South Korea-US joint military exercises and North Korean nuclear and missile provocations – is about an equal exchange. That is something neither Seoul nor Washington is likely to accept: the UN Security Council has deemed North Korea’s nuclear and missile testing to be illegal, while the joint military exercises are a lawful alliance activity. The solution lies in abandoning the “equal exchange” frame. This also explains why South Korea and the US positioned the postponement as a “voluntary alliance decision” for the sake of a “peaceful Olympics.”

The exercises may have been postponed, but they will be held eventually. The CFC said the alliance was in discussions on the schedule and would give notice once a decision is made. The Olympic truce period ends on Mar. 25, one week after the Pyeongchang Paralympics come to an end. This means a possibility that the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercises, which have typically lasted from late February to March, could begin as early as the end of March.

Given the state of preparations after the change in schedule and the fact that the first week in April brings the Easter holiday in the US, the start of the exercises could realistically be delayed until as late as mid-April.

“If we can actively use that period until the joint exercises resume and tie the provisional postponement into a de facto downscaling or halt, it could mean a new state of affairs for negotiations on the North Korean nuclear issue,” predicted University of North Korean Studies professor Koo Kab-woo.

Negotiations start with give-and-take. As things proceed in a way that benefits both sides, what seemed impossible can sometimes become impossible. In an interview with the Hankyoreh during his October visit to South Korea, former US State Department special envoy on the North Korean issue Robert Gallucci explained that “negotiations are about finding the methods and conditions to get you from where you are now to someplace else.”

In his New Year’s address, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un referred to the Pyeongchang Olympics together with the 70th anniversary of the North Korean government’s establishment on Sept. 9 as “great national events.” He described the Olympics in particular as a “good occasion for demonstrating our nation's prestige.” In other words, Pyongyang has its own “rationale” for declaring a moratorium on nuclear and missile testing for the sake of a successful Pyeongchang Olympics.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Special Representative for North Korea Policy Joseph Yun previously said that dialogue with North Korea could happen if 60 days pass following a declaration from Pyongyang that it is halting its nuclear and missile provocations. If North Korea declares a moratorium quickly, the sixty-day condition may be met before the Paralympics are over. It’s an approach that also accords with the “words for words” and “actions for actions” that has served as a guiding principle in past negotiations on the nuclear issue. This explains why South Korea and the US have moved so quickly to announce the exercises’ postponement.

“If North Korea and the US can get into a dialogue situation during the ‘peace period’ that has been bought until late March, it could add further momentum to dialogue as the provisional freeze-for-freeze becomes an actual freeze-for-freeze,” said Institute for National Security Strategy senior research fellow Cho Seong-ryoul.

“The period after Pyeongchang is going to be key,” Cho stressed.

A similar position is being voiced in the US. In a Jan. 3 piece for the political website The Hill, former US special advisor for nonproliferation and arms control Robert Einhorn and Brookings Institution senior fellow Michael O’Hanlon wrote that a freeze of South Korea-US exercises and North Korean nuclear and missile provocations during the Olympic truce period would be “an opportunity not to be squandered.”

“We would need to consider how that positive momentum might be sustained,” they wrote. As possible approaches, they suggested reducing the scale of the postponed exercises and the Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercise in the fall, substituting large-scale exercises with several smaller ones, and moving the exercises to Australia or California.

By Jung In-hwan and Kim Ji-eun, staff reporters and Park Byong-su, senior staff writer

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