Balance This!

[T]he Foreign Ministry’s special envoy on international security, Moon Chung-in, in a phone interview with the Chosun Ilbo elaborated on remarks a day earlier that Roh “is losing patience with U.S. President George W. Bush.

Today, my friends, I write to you from a city living in fear. As our President, George W. Bush, sits in the White House nibbling compulsively at the bleeding tendrils where there were fingernails just a day ago, a cunning tiger holds court from his lair in Seoul, balancing the fate of the world on a rocky fulcrum called Tokdo.

On each set of trembling lips the same questions are poised, all asking what Roh will do: Will he announce a withdrawal of Korean troops from Iraq? How would we ever fill that gaping hole in our front line? How would we ever defend Alaska? Who would buy our beef, rice, or cars? How would we keep the pressure on North Korea to disarm, or contain China’s ambitions? How can Chimpy Bushitler have squandered the goodwill of such an affectionate friend as Korea? Will we be denied the privilege, one we had all taken as God-given for so long, of defending this most holy of all earthly lands?

Asked whether a clash in North Korea policy between Seoul and Washington looms, Moon said, “We have not come up with any concrete measures yet and the situation will be determined by how Seoul coordinates its measures with Washington. But he added, “If the U.S. cannot accept the measures we take, it may create a rift between Seoul and Washington.

I have three words for Mr. Moon: horse, barn, door.

You can’t be dependent and independent at the same time. If you choose to accept U.S. protection, then you’re in an alliance, which implies a unity of vital interests that each nation is obliged to carefully consider, in consultation with the other, before making unilateral policy pronouncements. If you don’t have that unity of interests, then you should probably be independent, which is a completely different thing than public hostility, but which doesn’t come with guarantees of mutual military assistance, either.

In other words, life is full of choices, and eventually, you need to make one. If you want the benefits of independence, you have to give up the benefits of dependence. You can either do it quietly, or make a lot of noise, which tends to scare away investors and causes other nations not to take you seriously.

It seems remarkable that professional diplomats actually say things like this in public, unless you recall that Korea purged many of its professional diplomats years ago, in favor of middle-aged radicals and partisan hacks who are sometimes called Roh’s “Taliban.” There’s simply no purpose in this but domestic political consumption before an election where Roh stands to take the kind of beating that will seal his political extinction, and that of his party. Real diplomats don’t engage in public pissing matches. They take quiet, well-considered action in accordance with their interests.

And our interests? Those lie in disarming North Korea — with or without South Korea’s cooperation — and in extricating 32,000 American hostages from an outmoded and entangling alliance with dangerously emotional juveniles.