SEOUL - Imagine a second Korean War in
which the presidents of the United States and
South Korea had an equal voice in deciding how to
fight it, and the top commander, an American, more
or less took orders from both of them.
The
current US commander in South Korea, General B B
Bell, is offering that unlikely scenario as he and
his colleagues wade through a miasma of
anti-American sentiment, nationalist sensitivities
and often-conflicting views among Koreans about
the future of the US-South Korea alliance.
Amid calls for the dissolution of the
historic United Nations
Command, the fig leaf under
which the US prosecuted the Korean War, Bell has
come up with what appears as a formula for
salvaging the alliance and saving face for the
Koreans.
"There will be no change in the
alliance," he proclaimed to foreign and Korean
reporters. "The two nations have a 50-50 say in
operations. If there were to be a crisis in war in
the Republic of Korea, those processes would be
working as they have been working."
This
pronouncement, however, evades the uncomfortable
reality that South Korea wants to remove the US
commander from command of all troops in the event
of war, giving that role to a Korean. The only
question is when and how to do it.
Bell
falls back on a cover called the Combined Forces
Command as he claims the Americans are no longer
calling the shots, even though the American
commander remains in command of the CFC.
"Today, the US is not the supreme
commander in the Republic of Korea" (ROK), he
said. "We have the Combined Forces Command." In
that capacity, he professed to "work" for
President Roh Moo-hyun as well as President George
W Bush.
"I have to listen to President Roh
as I listen to President Bush," he said. US troops
would play a supporting role, providing, for
instance, artillery for South Korean infantry
units, while the South Koreans "will be in the
lead".
Those diplomatic remarks mask a
much deeper concern - that Roh and his advisers
would just as soon jettison the whole antiquated
structure of a UN Command and a CFC. US forces
would then in essence be out of the loop.
"The inability of UN commanders to gain
access to ROK forces, particularly ground forces,"
Bell warned, "raises a question: Is there a future
for US forces on the Korean Peninsula?"
The UN Command, he insisted, "must
maintain the capability to support ROK forces"
while rear bases on Japan remain "vital to UN
Command operations", as they were during the
Korean War.
Bell is battling for the
future of the UN Command and the CFC in the face
of ambushes by some of Roh's closest advisers.
Their view is that these commands, "mechanisms"
that Bell views as "extremely important", are in
essence mechanisms for US domination - and
possibly obstructions to rapprochement with North
Korea.
Meanwhile, what about Pyongyang?
Bell's carefully crafted defense of these
mechanisms coincides with a critical phase of
efforts to get North Korea to give up its nuclear
weapons. Bell spoke in Seoul as the US chief
envoy, Christopher Hill, was wrapping up three
days of talks in Berlin with his North Korean
counterpart, Kim Gye-gwan.
The talks,
incredibly, ended on an upbeat note. North Korea's
Foreign Ministry said they had been conducted "in
a sincere atmosphere" and had even produced "a
certain agreement".
Agreement on what,
though, remains far from clear. Hill, arriving in
Seoul to talk to South Korean Foreign Minister
Song Min-soon, said he didn't know what the North
Korean statement referred to but hoped the talks
in Berlin would lead to renewed six-party talks in
Beijing.
North Korean optimism may well
have reflected an impression that the United
States is willing to back off from the ban placed
on US firms dealing with Macau's Banco Delta Asia
and other institutions through which North Korea
may have funneled counterfeit money. It was
disagreement on that issue that doomed the most
recent attempt at six-party talks, just before
Christmas, to failure.
An agreement on
North Korea's nukes, though, is viewed in South
Korea as highly unlikely - and no guarantee
against the outbreak of hostilities. In that
context, Bell's diplomatic plea for the survival
of the system that has endured on the peninsula
from the Korean War adopts a tone of urgency, even
as he praises South Korean forces as "world
class".
The debate, though, gets
complicated as the Americans and South Koreans
quarrel over the timing of separation of Korean
troops from the Americans in the event of war.
Bell believes the two forces can work
their way through all the details by 2009, while
the South Koreans want to go longer, at least
until 2012. The suspicion remains that South
Korean commanders want the old system to endure
much longer, in opposition to the views of
civilian advisers.
Differences between the
US and South Korea, however, emerge in discussions
about almost all aspects of the relationship.
The Americans, for instance, are miffed by
suggestions that they may not be able to move
their military headquarters, and most of their
forces, into a huge new base at Pyongtaek, about
65 kilometers south of Seoul, by the end of 2008.
South Koreans have said the move may take several
years longer, while farmers, egged on by
activists, continue to resist takeover of their
remaining land, from which most have been forced
to move.
Bell ignores the leftist assault,
preferring to paint a picture of a clean-living
family lifestyle for the remaining US troops, if
only the Americans and South Koreans could get
over a few issues on the way to suburban
happiness.
Bell conjures a future of
genteel living that contrasts with the almost
slum-like conditions to which soldiers and their
families are subjected while awaiting construction
of the controversial new base. "It's time we make
a change," he said, decrying the need to consign
many of the 29,500 US troops still in Korea to
"below-standard quarters".
The new base
ideally provides the best chance - "possibly in a
century" - to reverse the pattern, he argued.
Rather than consigning soldiers to "short,
unaccompanied tours" of one year, "for this
alliance to grow and prosper" military people with
families should be able to spend two or three
years in South Korea savoring the delights of life
in the country.
Bell's image of the good
life for US soldiers in Korea runs into yet
another obstacle, resistance to US demands for
South Korea to pick up as much as half the cost of
construction and upkeep of the bases. The US this
year wants South Korea to ante up nearly US$900
million, while South Korea is sticking to an offer
of upwards of $700 million.
"Over the next
few months we will make cuts," Bell said. "That
will be very regrettable. I'm saddened by the fact
that we have to do this. I have to pay the bills."
No matter what, he added, "I'm going to defend the
quality of life of the Americans serving over here
in terms of the alliance."
After all the
talking, though, the impression is that the
alliance may be about as frayed as the UN Command
and the CFC that the Americans see as pillars of
the whole relationship.
Journalist
Donald Kirk has been covering Korea - and
the confrontation of forces in Northeast Asia -
for more than 30 years.
(Copyright
2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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