By Bonnie Kristian
The U.S. and South Korea have reached two agreements about the near-term future of the alliance, the Biden administration announced before the recent meeting in Seoul. First, the two governments worked out a new cost-sharing arrangement for the extensive U.S. military presence on the Korean Peninsula. And second, Washington and Seoul assented to suspend many of their annual joint military drills.
The latter is a smart move. It could well lower tensions and make space for useful diplomacy with North Korea, which regards the drills as practice for invasion and often responds with its own provocations in turn. The value of the cost-sharing arrangement is more difficult to assess. On the one hand, its settlement may allow more important diplomatic matters to move to the forefront in the relationship, which is to the good. But this deal also represents a recommitment to counterproductive U.S. dominance of inter-Korean relations, which serves neither U.S. interests nor the cause of peace.
The sort of burden-sharing that stands a real chance of breaking the impasse with North Korea is not fiscal. Rather, Washington should be shifting the responsibility and direction of diplomatic ventures to Seoul. Over the past decade, while U.S. interactions with North Korea have careened between insults and photo-ops, stalemate, and regression, South Korea has shown itself a far more persistent and qualified diplomat than the United States.
This piece was originally published in 1945 on March 19, 2021. Read more HERE.