U.S. Moves in S.Korea May Confuse Isolated North

June 6, 2003
By Jane Macartney, Asian Diplomatic Correspondent

SINGAPORE, J(Reuters) - If the United States is serious about rapid redeployment of its forces in Asia, it will have to do better than in South Korea: a decade after promising to hand over its huge Seoul headquarters, South Korea has regained only the golf course.

Now, the United States has said it will pull back its forces from the world's last Cold War frontier in a historic move that a top U.S. commander in the capitalist South said would not weaken the allies' defence against the communist North.

More far-reaching forces may be at play.

"The issue is not why are we doing this -- because it is clearly long overdue -- but why is it so urgent to announce it now," said Ralph Cossa, head of the Hawaii-based Pacific Forum CSIS think tank. The deal was agreed last October, he said.

"This is Rumsfeld with his eye on the bigger picture and his lack of regard for little minor details like the fact that the Cold War is not over yet on the Korean peninsula," he said of the U.S. Defence Secretary whose vision of a smaller, mobile, technologically advanced force triumphed in Iraq.

AGILE, EFFECTIVE AND FLEXIBLE

U.S. Pentagon officials have not hidden that new technology means U.S. military positions in the Asia-Pacific region can now be shifted to create a more agile, flexible and effective force. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said just that only days ago.

The problems of the Korean peninsula, where a North armed with chemical, biological and a vast array of conventional -- if not nuclear -- weapons hovers within range of Seoul are vastly more complicated and more deadly than threats in the Middle East.

North and South Korea remain technically at war because the armed truce that ended the 1950-53 Korean conflict never led to a peace treaty.

South Korean officials have voiced concern that shifting U.S. troops away from the frontier for the first time -- even if only by a few miles (kms) at first -- could be perceived by the North as a weakening of U.S. support for Seoul or as a move to clear the way for a pre-emptive attack on the North.

Moving house could be slow. An agreement in principle aobut 10 years ago to move the huge U.S. army headquarters from prime Seoul real estate has so far freed only a golf course.

Exacerbating the situation is the nuclear crisis over Pyongyang's atomic ambitions.

"This is a consequence not of a major U.S. policy change to Korea, but as much an issue of a changed and more modern approach to military operations," said Ross Babbage, professor of strategic and defence studies at the Australian National University in Canberra.

The changes are intended to enable U.S. troops, and their South Korean allies, to develop as more mobile units that are afforded greater manoeuvrability as they move further from the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) dividing North from South, he said.

"The scope to be taken by surprise and damaged in the first few minutes of a conflict is greatly reduced," Babbage said.

While the move may offer military advantages and new flexibility to troops pinned down for five decades along the most heavily fortified border on earth, the timing may not have been ideal given the nuclear crisis.

GETTING IT WRONG?

The move could further bolster the North Korean view that U.S. forces are so casualty averse that they want to move back from the frontline.

"That would not be out of line with previous wrong conclusions," said Cossa.

The manoeuvre may prove hard for the North to comprehend.

If Pyongyang tries to understand the move in the context of the peninsula it may make some erroneous assumptions, failing to view the shift as part of a worldwide military realignment.

"These are two separate events, but they are both occurring in the same universe," said Cossa. "That is hard for the North Koreans to believe and to figure out."

The grander U.S. plan is for a smaller force sustainable over the long term and with a smaller footprint, a force that is less intrusive and more flexible while taking into account changing strategic realities.

If Pyongyang decides to respond with yet more belligerent statements, it may find little sympathy among neighbours such as Japan, South Korea, Russia and even China who are increasingly irked at its bellicosity and falling more closely into line with U.S. demands for a multilateral solution to the nuclear crisis.

"Each time the North Koreans have responded by being more obnoxious that has helped the Bush strategy," said Cossa of the U.S. President's bid to avoid bilateral meetings with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's representatives.

"Kim Jong-il appears even more unreasonable and hardline than Bush," said Cossa.

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