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August 2, 2008

Senate Confirms Kathleen Stephens as Ambassador to Korea

[Updates below and in the text.] A couple of days ago, while traveling on business, I was informed that Sen. Brownback would lift his hold on the nomination of Kathleen Stephens to become Ambassador to the Republic of Korea. She was confirmed in a voice vote later that day. This is the first time I’ve had a chance to post about it. The Senate confirmed a new American ambassador to South Korea on Friday, after a senator dropped his objections...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
July 10, 2008

It’s Official: South Korea Is a Lost Cause

After opening last week in 350 theaters across South Korea, “Crossing” is now showing on 289 screens. As of Tuesday, 654,000 people had seen it ““ a modest number by local box office standards. In fact, the film’s producers are not certain if they will recover the investment of $4 million ““ a hefty sum by local standards. “Crossing” aims to remind South Korean viewers of an issue that they tend to overlook in a society concerned with its own...

Categories An Alliance?/Korean Society/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized
June 16, 2008

B.S. Stands for ‘Bovine Spongiform’

At this time a year ago, I thought by now that I’d be writing about the restoration of an alliance that Roh Moo Hyun had just about managed to destroy.  Although I’ve long felt that  a large  U.S. military presence in South Korea was an anachronism no longer justifed by any North Korean threat, I saw benefits to having  a healthy military, diplomatic, and economic alliance between South Korea and the United States.  Also, I think it would be nice...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Politics/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized
April 23, 2008

State Will Tell Congress that N. Korea Was Helping Syria Build a Reactor

Reuters and the Wall Street Journal are both reporting that State is about to give Congress that briefing that it’s long been demanding about what exactly the Israelis bombed in Syria last September.  A senior congressional aide and a former Bush administration North Korea specialist said they believed the briefings were designed to persuade members of Congress that removing those sanctions was justified. Latest word, by the way, is that when State publishes its new list of state sponsors of...

Categories Appeasement/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea
April 17, 2008

Must Read: Sung-Yoon Lee on the Bush-Lee Summit

If anyone ever asks what we should do about North Korea from this day forward, I think I’ll just refer them to this: Empower the office of the US special envoy for human rights in North Korea so that the special envoy can fulfill his mandate as per Section 107 of the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004 unfettered by Washington politics. Make full use of the $20 million appropriated for 2008 to provide assistance to North Koreans outside...

Categories An Alliance?/Money Laundering/U.S. & Korea
April 16, 2008

The Death of an Alliance, Part 68

Here is a delicious pairing of cause and effect: The U.S. has notified the South Korean government it will withdraw one squadron of some 20 F-16 fighters by the end of this year. [….]   The Defense Ministry is reportedly busy working out a response. They take the view that the abrupt notice of the withdrawal has something to do with the U.S.’s demand that Korea bear more upkeep cost for the USFK. [Chosun Ilbo] If you happen to believe...

Categories An Alliance?/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea
April 3, 2008

What Should the Senate Ask Kathleen Stephens?

A reader tells me that the nomination hearing for Kathleen Stephens, State’s pick to be our next Ambassador to Seoul, will take place on April 16th, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. So if you sat on that panel, what would you ask? Naturally, I presume that every single answer to that kind of question will be thoughtful and intelligent, and the most intelligent and thoughtful questions have some unquantifiable chance to be seen by the people who will write...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
March 31, 2008

Kathleen Stephens: The Wrong Person for the Job

A  few months ago, the Korean press reported that State had submitted the name of Kathleen Stephens to be the next U.S. Ambassador to South Korea, to replace the competent and affable  Alexander Vershbow.  At the time, I did not have strong opinions about Ms. Stephens’s fitness for that position.  Further research has convinced me that Ms. Stephens, though well qualified for the job and apparently a perfectly fine person, is the wrong person to be our next Ambassador to...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea/Washington Views
March 28, 2008

South Korea Grows Up

First the Human Rights Commission, now this:      The South Korean government has decided to vote for a resolution on human rights in North Korea to be adopted by the UN Human Rights Council this week, it emerged on Tuesday. South Korea has so far boycotted or abstained from all UN votes on North Korea including the General Assembly, except for 2006, when the North conducted a nuclear test. [….] A government official, speaking on the customary condition of...

Categories "United" Nations/An Alliance?/Appeasement/NK Military/U.S. & Korea
February 4, 2008

USFK Commander Against Further Troops Cuts (Update: USFK Denies)

General Burwell B. Bell III, commander of United States Forces Korea, expressed his wish to keep the status quo at a meeting last month, the sources said. South Korea and U.S. officials met for talks in Washington on Jan. 23.  According to the sources, Bell asked Korean officials to back his proposal to hold force levels at the current 28,500 troops. As a part of a plan to realign US. troops around the world, Washington and Seoul have agreed to...

Categories An Alliance?/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
January 8, 2008

The Restoration

No one should take pleasure in seeing another person worry about  losing his job, but there  is much to celebrate about how Lee Myung-Bak’s new administration is shaping up.  Some doubt is now cast on earlier reports that  the UniFiction Ministry would be abolished, although it’s clear that  its size and influence will be reduced  dramatically.  Its days as a foreign policy player are over,  and the the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MOFAT) will regain its foreign policy...

Categories An Alliance?/Appeasement/U.S. & Korea
September 24, 2007

Some USFK Stats and History

A few days ago, a reader asked me how much the presence of the USFK cost American taxpayers.  This is a research project I’ve taken on before, only to be confronted by few answers from credible sources.  You’re about to see what I mean here. Writing for the Nautilus Institute, Selig Harrison claimed in 2001 that the annual cost was $42 billion per year.   Another Nautilus alum,  Doug Bandow, claimed in his recent Korea book  that withdrawing from the...

Categories An Alliance?/History/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
September 13, 2007

What the Bush Administration Really Thinks About ‘The Spat’

Commenter Michael Sheehan dropped a link to a must-read by former senior NSC advisor Michael Green, on Roh’s bumbling open-air negotiation with President Bush last week. Green also thinks that Roh knew what he was doing, that he did it for domestic political reasons, and that he set his own goals back in the process. In other words, typical Roh: Watching the exchange later on YouTube.com, I felt great sympathy for my former national security colleagues in both countries, since...

Categories An Alliance?/Diplomacy/U.S. & Korea
September 7, 2007

The Death of an Alliance, Part 67

[Update: As I had figured, only video really does it justice. Just watch the body language and Bush’s expression. And for that matter, Roh’s. Roh certainly has used his presidency to perfect a sublime aura of idiocy. It’s hard for me to imagine that South Korean voters will be impressed if their media ever decide to cover this story. There definitely isn’t much love in that room. Click the image. Update 1 continued below, with an AP report that does...

Categories An Alliance?/Korean Politics/U.S. & Korea
July 14, 2007

If Jack Pritchard Doesn’t Believe Jack Pritchard, Why Should We?

Jack Pritchard probably comes to his role as South Korea’s  main policy mouthpiece honestly,  through a shared  belief that the next ten years of unrequited aid really will change North Korea into a peaceful, bucolic, union-free garment  district.  Pritchard is President of the Korea Economic  Institute, which  works  Washington’s Korea-watching and policy-making crowds through its regular sponsorship of social and academic dinner  events.  I’ve been to a few myself, and though I seldom agree with  what I hear there,  the...

Categories Media Criticism/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Politics/Washington Views/WMD
July 5, 2007

The FTA and ‘Fortress Korea’

It can be disturbing to find so much to agree with in the writings of someone who doesn’t share your outlook on the bigger picture. I generally favor the lowering of trade barriers and oppose the protection of domestic industries from the competition of a fair and open market. Note the key caveat in that last sentence, for defining “fair and open” is where the devil is. I suspect Alan Tomlinson defines it more narrowly than I do, and that...

Categories NK Economics/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Politics
June 18, 2007

Lee Myung-Bak Proposes ‘Kaesong Archipelago’

Would you trust this man?  If you were one of those hoping that the next South  Korean election would be the end of our long international nightmare, you were mistaken: Former Seoul Mayor Lee Myung-bak, the front-running opposition presidential aspirant in December’s election, proposed Monday creating a “Manhattan-like” island near the border with North Korea and building an inter-Korean industrial park there to ease military tension. Dubbed “Na-deul,” which means a narrow waterway in Korean, the manmade island would be...

Categories Human Rights/NK Economics/Proliferation/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Politics/WMD