North Won’t Deal While U.S. Troops Stay

Despite repeated warnings and protests by the U.S., Japan and South Korea, signs indicate that North Korea will proceed to launch another long-range missile soon.

The crux of the problem between Washington and Pyongyang is the presence of U.S. forces in South Korea. The U.S. sent its armed forces to Korea in 1950 to help South Korea repel a North Korean invasion. When the war became unwinnable by either side, an armistice was arranged in 1953. The U.S. and South Korea then concluded a mutual defense treaty under which the U.S. forces have been stationed in South Korea as a bulwark against possible renewed North Korean attack. Meanwhile, South Korea, with twice the population of North Korea, has built up a strong military establishment, supported by U.S. help and its own substantial economic development, while North Korea has been undergoing severe economic blight.

No military experts today believe that the North has the capability of launching a successful military adventure against the South, save the possibility of suicidal attack, if and when cornered by provocation from outside. In recent years, the U.S. has been arguing that its forces in South Korea would remain there forever, even after the reunification of Korea, in order to safeguard the peace and security in East Asia. To back up such argument, the U.S. asserts that the presence of U.S. forces in Korea has been the major contributing factor to the maintenance of peace in the region.

However, this is an assertion that North Korea cannot and would not buy. To North Korea, U.S. forces in South Korea are foreign intruders on their homeland. These are the same military forces that invaded and tried to exterminate them in 1950. The U.S. then sabotaged the 1954 Geneva Conference in order to stymie Article IV of the Korean Armistice Agreement, which envisioned the withdrawal of foreign troops from Korea. Moreover, the U.S. had, in breach of the armistice agreement, brought and kept in South Korea a substantial amount of nuclear weapons until it removed them in 1991. It also has steadfastly refused to negotiate a conclusion of a peace treaty to supersede the agreement.

So long as U.S. forces are stationed in South Korea with their guns pointed at them, North Koreans are not able to sleep in peace.

If the U.S. cannot live with a North Korea armed with weapons of mass destruction, and still wants to have its forces stationed in East Asia, it needs to come up with a new comprehensive policy designed to realize the following: withdrawal of U.S. forces from South Korea to be implemented concurrently with substantial arms reductions on the Korean peninsula, including North Korea’s renunciation of missile programs; creation of a neutralized, disarmed and unified Korea; and arrangement for a regional security mechanism where U.S. forces can play a leading role for safeguarding peace in East Asia in cooperation with other countries of the region.