Why We Signed

I grow weary of sounding the death knell of the U.S.-Korea alliance now that it’s just a question of being how fast and how ugly. If anyone is smart and honest enough to offer a cogent defense of it, it’s U.S. Ambassador Alexander Vershbow, who has made plenty of enemies in Korea by speaking his country’s views plainly. Now we know that the best justification he can offer is as light, flavorless, and indigestable as styrofoam, and just as easily broken into tiny little bits by gentle little ground-loving rodents.

What really makes this Don Kirk piece in the Asia Times so interesting is the inside story of why the last round of six-nation talks whipsawed so dramatically between fleeting “success” — at signing a mostly awful but very preliminary deal — and the North Korean renunciation of the same deal, thus rescuing us from it.

The fact is, as Hill later acknowledged, he agreed to this document so the United States would not appear as the odd man out, the spoilsport responsible for blocking any agreement at all. He was under strong pressure from the veteran South Korean diplomat who was then the South’s chief negotiator at the talks, Song Min-soon. Song, who had gotten to know Hill when they both were ambassadors to Poland, now has moved on – and up – to the highly influential post of national security adviser, one of President Roh Moo-hyun’s top aides.

Knowing that, I might have signed it, too, were I in Hill’s place. Simple process of elimination tells me this deal was a Chinese-South Korean creation (here is your new alliance) with the U.S. and North Korea each being pressured to sign. Although the terms were mostly awful and probably unsaleable in Congress, finding ourselves isolated diplomatically would have been a disadvantage. Thanks to Kim Jong Il’s near-immediate renunciation of the terms, we instead have a freer hand to take sterner measures against the North Koreans. We also knew that the North Koreans would eventually fail the verification test.

Knowing that, I’m also more convinced than ever that South Korea has moved closer to China than the United States, diplomatically speaking. We don’t share a set of common interests. Our military alliance is an anachronism.

Pray that the North Koreans don’t decide that they’d like this deal after all, because a good share of the State Department does.

ht: The Lost Nomad
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