Strategic Implications of U.S. Troop Withdrawals from Korea

Federal News Service June 15, 2004 Tuesday

HEADLINE: HEARING OF THE HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE SUBJECT: STRATEGIC IMPLICATIONS OF U.S. TROOP WITHDRAWALS FROM KOREA

CHAIRED BY: REPRESENTATIVE DUNCAN HUNTER (R-CA)

WITNESSES: PETER BROOKES, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION; MICHAEL E. O'HANLON, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION

LOCATION: 2118 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.

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REP. RICK LARSEN (D-WA): Norwegians before Swedes, that's a wise choice, Mr. Chairman. (Laughter.)

Mr. Brookes, you keep saying that South Korea can do more.

They've got the proposed 13 percent increase to the defense budget. It might tick up the percentage of GDP going into the defense budget. So it can do more. Can you be specific about what ROK can do in terms of more?

MR. BROOKES: Yeah. I would like to see them have a more well- rounded force. They're very heavy ground forces, very capable. The ROKs are very tough, have a tremendous amount of confidence in them. But they could use more naval assets. They're looking at buying-they have some destroyer programs. They're looking at the KDX-III, which will be equipped with Aegis. And we also need greater air assets. They're also looking not only getting the F-15s, but they're looking at some air-to-air refueling capability. They need PAC-3s, Patriot-3s, counterbattery radar. So I think what I would like them to see is become a more balanced force with their naval and-to add to the significant capability of their ground forces by adding better naval and air assets.

REP. LARSEN: Does South Korea have a strategic interest beyond North Korea that would push them more into navy and air assets? I mean, or would these be purchased or developed strictly for the North Korean problem?

MR. BROOKES: Well, I think these systems-it would probably be best asked to the South Koreans their future intentions. I think they would like to be a regional player, I really do. I mean, they've come-you know, think how far they've come in 50 years since the Korean War: 11th-largest economy; a very boisterous, open democracy. They have much to be proud of, and I think they would like to be more of a regional player.

But these systems can also be applied that way. F-15s with air- to-air refueling, seagoing destroyers, these sort of things can certainly play a regional role as well, beyond North Korea.

REP. LARSEN: This may have come up in a previous hearing; I'm not sure. The Defense Department has talked about the $11 billion over the next several years in the capability investment in South Korea. And maybe we have details on what that would mean or maybe we can't talk about it in this setting, but do you all have an idea of what that $11 billion is going to go to?

MR. BROOKES: I don't. I heard it was 150 military capabilities, and I would assume that perhaps the committee had been briefed on this. But I've not seen anything in unclassified sources that laid that out. I think some of the things we were, you know, talking about is probably air defense, PAC-3, you know, some of the things along that line that would be needed on the ground; that we can provide that the South Koreans don't currently have.

REP. LARSEN: Okay.

Dr. O'Hanlon, discussing your grand bargain earlier and going to your book, I was struck by a comment out of your book. You said that it's not that we don't have an approach to North Korea; it's that we don't have an approach to our regional partners, and that is trying to, you know, give them the incentive to participate. And I think when you discussed that earlier, you didn't mention sort of the punch line is that you sort of walk though this with North Korea to show whether or not they're going to be good-faith partners or not, and when they don't show they're good-faith partners it shows our other regional partners that we have a reason to be tough. It's not just that we're there just to try to negotiate with-negotiate away the nuclear problem on the peninsula, but to show the regional partners that they don't have a partner in North Korea. Is that accurate?

MR. O'HANLON: Yes. I think-thank you, Congressman.

One of the reasons we propose this broader agenda is if the North Koreans say no or they consistently show that they're not trustworthy in implementing any deal they adopt, we have a much stronger case with the South Koreans and the Chinese and Japanese to put economic pressure at a minimum on the North Koreans. Right now I do not believe we have that capability, and the Chinese also doubt our intelligence on whether North Korea has the uranium enrichment program.

So even though on the one hand the Bush administration's done a great job working with China in broad terms, in specific terms we are not on the same page in dealing with North Korea right now. And the logic of the six-party talks therefore, in my opinion, is not very promising. The idea is right. The concept is right. But right now we're not at a point where is going to work in my judgment because the Chinese and the South Koreans both thing we're being too inflexible and their loyalties are actually somewhat divided about who they think should make the next step in the negotiations.

REP. LARSEN: I think from our perspective, we may, you know, look at the U.S. experience with North Korea over the last 10 years and say what more do we have to show? But that is not the case from our partners in the region.

MR. O'HANLON: Well, the agreed framework, which, of course, was adopted 10 years ago, did talk about America lifting trade sanctions and taking North Korea off various lists that prevented aid, and so forth. This was not concrete, it was not specific, and the North Koreans did a lot of things wrong to give us good reason not to take those steps. But nonetheless, we did talk about that agenda at that time, but there hasn't been any progress down that path.

So the North Koreans may not want to reform; Mr. Brookes may very well be right. But to the extent that they have an interest in exploring the idea, I think we need to make the incentives a little more clear, as long as we demand that they comply with demilitarization accords as a quid pro quo along the way.

REP. LARSEN: Just quickly, Mr. Chairman.

Now, taking that and just boiling it down to the 12,500 troops we're talking about, how does that redeployment fit, does it fit, should it fit into the broader issues that we're trying to negotiate in that region?

MR. O'HANLON: It's a tough question. A year ago, I would have opposed this decision, because a year ago-this Bush administration decision. A year ago, I would have wanted the North Koreans to worry that we might actually preempt their plutonium-their 8,000 fuel rods at Yongbyong if they didn't negotiate in good faith. Now it's too late. We all know it's too late. There was an American delegation, you know full well-my colleague, Jack Pritchard, was one of the five this past winter in Yongbyong who saw that the plutonium is gone. We don't have a preemption option anymore unless it's all-out war. And we've been discussing here-and Congressman Weldon, others in this committee have been focused on this issue as well and know full well the implications of an all-out war.

So the preemption option is gone. So to my mind, taking the 12,000 forces out, maybe it marginally reduces your capability to preempt, but we're not going to do that anyway. And therefore, the negotiation has to be thought of with less of a military card involved than it might have had a year or two ago. Ironically, the Bush administration has lost its ability to exercise the military leverage over North Korea that the Clinton administration actually was able to exercise. It's ironic in many ways. The administration that's thought of as focused on preemption, actually has been in some ways softer in its ability to use military leverage against North Korea than the first term of the Clinton administration, right in that period of greatest difficulty for Clinton foreign policy. Bill Perry's threats were pretty clear. Now we don't have credible military threats anymore, and therefore, I don't really think this 12,000-troop reduction fits into the negotiation strategy very much.

REP. LARSEN: Mr. Brookes, it might be fun to hear your response.

MR. BROOKES: Yeah. I just wanted to comment a little bit on Mike's revisionism of history. I mean, you know, the preemption thing goes back to Bill Perry and back to the Clinton administration in 1994 when we were talking about taking strikes there, and the idea was to preempt their ability to reprocess these fuel rods, to produce additional fuel rods.

But the problem is, is that it's never really been-preemption on the nuclear program has never been a really good option because everybody thinks all you have to do is take out what's going on at Yongbyon. But the fact is, is that if they have two to three nuclear weapons, or as many as eight now, they're not at Yongbyon, okay? They're not putting all their eggs in one basket. They're hidden out somewhere. They've had a uranium program since 1998, at least that's what intelligence believes, and I think that's becoming clear under the information we're getting out of Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist. That's not at Yongbyon either.

So if you take out Yongbyon, yeah, you may be able to take out some of these 8,000 fuel rods, but there's these other aspects of the program, such as two to three potentially weaponized programs-weapons, nuclear weapons that are not at Yongbyon, and this uranium program.

So, I mean, it was always a preemption issue, and the Bush administration didn't allow that to slip away within the last year. I mean, it depends what you're trying to preempt. If you're trying to preempt the production of additional fissile material or the reprocessing of fuel rods, you can go to Yongbyon, but I don't think we have our arms completely around their uranium enrichment program. And we're finding it out bit by bit through what Khan has known and other things.

So, I mean I would just disagree with Mike's characterization about where we lost the preemption option and if the preemption, if you're just talking about the nuclear issue, was ever a good option going back to 1994.

REP. LARSEN: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.