As Biden and Yoon reach for ‘overwhelming power’ against Pyongyang, chances of peace on Korean peninsula take a hit

Instead of focusing on more military measures to counter North Korea, leaders in the US and South Korea should be finding ways to revive diplomacy and dialogue

Gabriela Bernal

Published: 3:30am, 9 May 2023

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After the recent summit between US President Joe Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, questions are being raised about the future of diplomacy on the Korean peninsula.

The priority at the meeting was clearly to discuss military measures to counter North Korea, instead of finding ways to revive diplomacy and dialogue. Yoon emphasised that the policy line being pursued by Washington and Seoul was aimed at achieving peace “through the superiority of overwhelming forces and not a false peace based on the goodwill of the other side.”

Yoon reiterated this stance last Tuesday, vowing to strengthen South Korea’s national security through “peace by overwhelming power, not a fake peace”. Yoon, his ruling party and a large number of conservatives in South Korea believe that the previous administration’s North Korea strategy was too appeasing and naive, with a major pitfall being its reliance on Pyongyang’s goodwill.

But this perception is rather narrow and fails to acknowledge the many successes that former president Moon Jae-in’s policies achieved. The most obvious was the significant de-escalation of tensions after the volatile stand-off in 2017.

Although no solution was found to the North Korean nuclear problem, the former government was able to bring the North Koreans back to the negotiating table, launch peace and exchange initiatives with the North, and play a valuable mediating role between Washington and Pyongyang.

The state of the current US-South Korea alliance, however, is moving things in the opposite direction.

The main focus of the latest summit was to strengthen extended deterrence to better deal with North Korean military threats to the South. Biden and Yoon agreed to share information on nuclear and strategic weapon operation plans in response to North Korea’s provocations, and have regular consultations on ways to plan and execute operations combining South Korean conventional forces with US nuclear capabilities.

Besides the focus on joint planning, the two leaders also agreed to deploy US strategic assets to the Korean peninsula “constantly and routinely”.

North Korea was quick to respond last Monday, accusing the United States of wanting to “turn the whole of South Korea into its biggest nuclear war outpost in the Far East”.

While the actions of the US and South Korea are creating more tension and increasingly closing the door to diplomacy with the North, Washington and Seoul continue to pay lip service to their interest in dialogue with Pyongyang. Both Biden and Yoon “remain steadfast in their pursuit of dialogue and diplomacy” with North Korea, a US State Department deputy spokesman said last week.

03:54

Beijing denounces US and South Korea plans for nuclear submarine

Although renewed diplomacy with North Korea is desperately needed to reduce tensions, rebuild regular communication lines and begin negotiating agreements, the focus in Washington and Seoul is clearly not on establishing dialogue. If it were, major policy changes would have been made involving more realistic options to bring North Korea back to the negotiating table.

Rhetoric from conservative circles in South Korea about wanting to possess nuclear weapons and Washington threatening “the end” of the North Korean regime while sending more nuclear assets to the peninsula do not send a message to the North that diplomacy is seriously being considered or even desired.

“We reconfirmed the hostility of the rulers and military warmongers of Washington and Seoul towards our country,” Kim Yo-jong, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, said in a statement released after the summit. “The more nuclear assets they deploy in the vicinity of the Korean peninsula, the stronger the exercise of our right to self-defence will become in direct proportion to them.”

02:03

North Korea warns enemies of ‘extreme horror’ as it tests new missile

As a result of this summit and the increasingly hardline rhetoric from both Washington and Seoul against Pyongyang, military provocations on the Korean peninsula are likely to increase.

North Korea is likely to continue to develop more nuclear weapons and expand its weapons arsenal. More tests in particular can be expected whenever US strategic assets are deployed to the Korean peninsula, which, according to Seoul and Washington, will become a more regular occurrence.

Although Yoon says he will achieve peace through force, a more likely result of this strategy is increased tension, a higher chance of accidental military clashes and even military conflict. Such conflicts could be lethal for ordinary Koreans and even affect the security and stability of neighbouring countries such as Japan and China.

Seoul must reach for diplomacy, not nuclear arms, to defuse tensions

Beijing has expressed concern over the plans announced at the US-South Korea summit. “What the US has done stokes bloc confrontation, undermines the nuclear non-proliferation system and hurts the strategic interest of other countries,” a Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman said the day after the summit.

Peace must be pursued through communication, diplomacy, compromises and long-term, sustained efforts from all sides. Doubling down on military responses with little to no attention paid to the diplomatic process only serves to allot North Korea more time to develop its already dangerous military capabilities.

As long as words are not met with corresponding actions, it is difficult to imagine North Korea being open to any kind of diplomacy that could reduce tensions and set a foundation for peace on the peninsula. The answer to peace cannot be military force. Instead, a long-term plan centred around diplomacy must be chosen to prevent increased military tensions, provocations, conflict, loss of life and regional instability.

Gabriela Bernal is a North Korea analyst and PhD scholar at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, South Korea