All posts by Rodger Baker

Asia, Foreign Policy, Security

With the Drawdown of US Forces in Germany, Is South Korea Next?

1 Comment

This article has been republished with permission from our partner, Stratfor. The original version was first published in Stratfor’s WORLDVIEW and can be found here.

With the drawdown of U.S. forces in Germany underway, a reduction of U.S. forces in South Korea is now more likely than ever, given evolving U.S. defense priorities and longstanding trends on the Korean Peninsula. Rumors of an imminent U.S. force drawdown in Korea have been circulating since at least 2019, and President Donald Trump has made it clear he wants to reduce large overseas basing. South Korea, however, is a particularly contentious case, as any changes to the size and structure of U.S. forces must take into consideration both the local mission of deterring against North Korea, as well as the broader U.S. strategic mission of refocusing on great power competition, particularly with China. And that will require reassessing South Korea’s own national defense capabilities, the benefits and risks of having a large forward force based on the Asian mainland, and the impact of any shift in forces on the overall perception of U.S. commitment and reliability with other allies and partners in the region.

The Question of U.S. Forces in South Korea

Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has sought to reduce its large-scale overseas basing, both to reduce financial and political costs and create a more flexible and responsive force structure better adapted to the changing threat dynamic. Cost-sharing agreements are often contentious, and the current stalemate between the United States and South Korea has dragged on with no end in sight. U.S. basing is also often a source of protest inside South Korea, over land use, accidents or illegal behavior by U.S. personnel, and the perception of continued occupation. Reducing the U.S. footprint and shifting more to naval, air and rotational units could ease these tensions.

Under the current National Defense Strategy (NDS), Secretary of Defense Mark Esper is now reviewing the overall posture of U.S. forces abroad, with the mandate toward a more flexible forward posture. Since the early 2000s, U.S. forces in Korea have moved out of the major facility at Yongsan in Seoul. The United States has also pulled most of its forces south of the Han River. During the Iraq War, the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush cut total troop numbers in Korea by nearly 12,000 as well, in part because forces based in Korea cannot be readily used for contingencies elsewhere.

Amid reports that the Pentagon had already recommended force restructuring in Korea, Esper said on July 21 that he had given no order to withdraw forces, but then emphasized that he was reviewing all geographic combatant commands in line with the current NDS, with a desire for more rotational forces and greater strategic flexibility.

In that context, a longstanding suggestion for reshaping the U.S. military posture in South Korea is a further shift toward more naval and air assets, and reduced U.S. ground forces — potentially moving more ground forces to a rotational basis, rather than extended deployments. Doing so would maintain a deterrent presence in Korea and retain the benefit of training with South Korean forces, while still reducing constraints due to limits on the deployment of Korean-based forces to conflicts elsewhere. Rotational forces also have a smaller footprint in overseas basing, as they do not include family or family support functions that extended deployments entail.

The U.S. will not abandon South Korea given its value in deterring both North Korea and China. Washington will, however, continue to reshape its overseas force posture.

The restructuring of U.S. forces, however, is complicated by U.S. operational control (OPCON) over South Korean forces in the event of war. South Korea has had its military under U.S. OPCON since the Korean War in the early 1950s, with the South Korean military only regaining formal OPCON of its own forces in peacetime in 1994. Over the decades, the transfer of wartime OPCON to South Korea has been delayed numerous times due to its military’s perceived unreadiness and occasional flare-ups of tensions with North Korea. For South Korea, particularly under liberal governments like that of current President Moon Jae In, OPCON transfer is a critical step to fully realizing its independence and national pride. Korea was under Japanese control from 1910 to 1945, and has had its military under U.S. OPCON since the Korean War. And while its alliance with the United States remains important for Seoul, the nature of the two countries’ military relationship is still at times seen as paternalistic

The Case for Restructuring

There are several arguments in support of such a restructuring. For one, U.S. forces in South Korea are largely a Cold War left-over and are limited in use for operations outside the country. South Korea, Germany and Japan continue to represent the largest hosting of U.S. forces abroad, and the largest expenditures for basing. Prior to the announced drawdown, Germany hosted more than 35,000 U.S. forces, South Korea more than 26,000 and Japan more than 55,000, according to the latest tally by the Heritage Foundation’s Defense Manpower Data Center. The Pentagon has traditionally avoided using U.S. forces stationed in South Korea for operations elsewhere, both due to the North Korean threat and to South Korean political concerns.

The balance of forces on the Korean Peninsula also currently favors South Korea, reducing the necessity of a large ready U.S. presence. That balance was an important consideration in U.S. President Richard Nixon’s decision to reduce forces in South Korea in 1971, desiring for Seoul to carry more of the burden for its own national defense. A revision of U.S. intelligence estimates of North Korean strength also played a role in reversing President Jimmy Carter’s decision to further reduce forces in South Korea less than a decade later.

North Korean capabilities no longer require the U.S. force posture currently configured in South Korea as well. While North Korea has significantly improved its missile and rocket capabilities, the effective counter is not necessarily more forces open the ground, but rather improved missile defense capabilities and the development of South Korean counter-strike capabilities. South Korea has been constrained in the latter for decades by the United States for fear of triggering a war with North Korea that would lock Washington into conflict. But Washington recently agreed to allow Seoul to develop solid-fuel rockets and has expanded its acceptable payload size. South Korea has also recently identified ground and air-launch missiles as a key component of its force development, along with local missile defense. Given the developments in the South Korean military and the situation in North Korea, it is unlikely that Pyongyang would see a reduction of U.S forces in South Korea as an invitation to roll tanks south.

The Case Against Restructuring

But there are also valid arguments against a U.S. withdrawal from South Korea, including:

Preserving a key, amphibious entry point to Asia in the case of a U.S.-China conflict. South Korea’s most concrete value to the U.S. defense posture is perhaps its role as an amphibious bridge between the maritime world and the Asian continent. Strategic competition between the United States and China plays out where the maritime power of the United States meets the continental power of China. Korea has long been the bridge between maritime Japan and continental China, for culture as well as warfare — serving as the launching point for the Mongol invasions of Japan in the 13th century, the Japanese attempted invasion of China in the 16th century, and the Japanese imperial invasion of Asia in the late 19th and early 20th century. The United States is strengthening military ties with other amphibious points around the Chinese periphery, including Vietnam and India. And while South Korea may be vulnerable due to its lack of strategic depth, its proximity to the Chinese north fleet and Beijing also makes it a key strategic point.

It’s unlikely North Korea would see a reduction of U.S forces as an invitation to roll tanks south.

Maintaining the longstanding U.S.-South Korea relationship. In both South Korea and the United States, support of a continued robust U.S. force presence is often based on the two countries’ 70-year military partnership. U.S. forces fought in Korea, Korean forces fought alongside the United States in Vietnam, and the two continue to train together.

Reassuring other allies of the United States’ commitment to the region. A robust presence of U.S. forces in South Korea also serves as a consistent reminder to North Korea, and perhaps China, of a U.S. commitment to protect its democratic allies in the region. Since the end of the Cold War, North Korea clearly took this to heart, and its military development has shifted from a focus on overwhelming the South Korean ground forces to a missile, rocket and cyber-heavy emphasis that targets the U.S. forces and interests. Countering these capabilities requires a nearby U.S. presence, just as countering Russian threats or Iran’s missile and nuclear developments require U.S. military operations across Europe and the Middle East, respectively.

A reduction of forces could signal that, despite its Pacific Defense Initiative, the United States is more concerned with keeping competition and conflict bottled up in Asian waters far from U.S. shores, rather than strengthening and defending its allies and partners. Despite hosting more U.S. troops, Japan is particularly sensitive to any changes to the presence of U.S. forces in South Korea, which helps buffer it from Asian conflict. Japan has been very vocal each time a major revision to U.S. forces in South Korea has been contemplated, as a complete withdrawal would leave Japan the frontline. And while Tokyo has gone far to reinterpret its pacifist constitution, there is still strong political and social sentiment against Japan’s role as a regional belligerent.

Current Dynamics Facilitate Restructuring

The United States is not going to simply abandon South Korea, but will instead continue to reshape its overseas force posture — reducing singular large basing in favor of more flexible and dispersed permeant and rotational presence, while allowing for the concentration of forces as needed, rather than as dictated by existing large basing. With the U.S. presidential election less than three months away, there is pressure on Trump to take action on issues it wants to see accomplished before a potential change of government, and reducing U.S. forces abroad has been a key issue from the start of his administration.

With South Korea currently under a liberal government, and seeking to heal rifts with North Korea while strengthening its own national defense capabilities and industry, a tailored reduction of U.S. forces may not meet significant resistance from Seoul, though it would certainly play into the deadlock over cost-sharing. While always a contentious issue, there may now well be an alignment of factors that make this the time for the United States to start once again downsizing its military presence in South Korea.

Rodger Baker is the Senior VP of Strategic Analysis at Stratfor. He leads Stratfor’s strategic thinking on global issues and future trends.

Asia, China, Foreign Policy, Politics

What the End of One Country, Two Systems Means for Hong Kong, Taiwan and the World

This article has been republished with permission from our partner, Stratfor. The original version was first published in Stratfor’s WORLDVIEW and can be found here.

HIGHLIGHTS

  • Beijing’s decision to impose a long-delayed security law on Hong Kong reflects the mainland’s growing concern with challenges to national unity.
  • Hong Kong will face an acceleration of reintegration, and a more rapid erosion of its special status, while Taiwan will face increased economic and military pressure from the mainland.
  • China will use its political, economic and, if need be, military might to assert its sovereignty over its periphery, including Taiwan and the South China Sea.

Beijing’s decision to impose a long-delayed security law on Hong Kong reflects the mainland’s growing concern with challenges to national unity ahead of next year’s 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party. But it is more immediately driven by the rising violence in Hong Kong and the political evolution in Taiwan. Despite international criticism, China will strengthen efforts to fully integrate Hong Kong and to further isolate Taiwan internationally.

The issues of Hong Kong and Taiwan are intimately linked for Beijing. Hong Kong was intended to be a model of effective unification under one country, two systems, to entice Taiwan to rejoin the motherland and bring to fruition the post-World War II rebuilding of China. But Hong Kong’s integration has grown increasingly fractious over the past decade, and this has reinforced sentiment in Taiwan that reintegration with China would see a similar erosion of Taiwan’s political and social structures.

With Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen’s reelection in January, driven in part by the Hong Kong protests, Beijing is aware that there is little support left in Taiwan for reintegration with the mainland. Rather, Taiwanese politics now splits between pro-status quo and pro-independence ideas. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought Taiwan’s international status back to the forefront, with countries from the United States to Australia arguing in favor of increasing Taiwanese participation in International forums like the World Health Organization, something strenuously objected to by Beijing.

The issues of Hong Kong and Taiwan are intimately linked for Beijing: Hong Kong was intended to be a model of effective unification to entice Taiwan to rejoin the motherland.

The 2019 protesters in Hong Kong rallied around five key demands, essentially insisting on self-determination for Hong Kong. This was clearly something on which Beijing would not yield. As protests continued, elements within the movement grew more violent, with some using improvised explosives, something Beijing fears Hong Kong security forces cannot fully manage. The combination of the college break and the social restrictions implemented due to the COVID-19 crisis eased the protests, but the Chinese National People’s Congress’ decision to take up the security law reignited them. While these protests were small, they demonstrated a growing willingness to challenge Hong Kong’s restrictions on gatherings and foreshadowed another summer of regular protest activity leading up to legislative elections in September.

The security law was supposed to be something Hong Kong itself passed following the 1997 handover from the United Kingdom, but domestic opposition delayed concrete action. Beijing has now stepped in to provide the legal tools to counter separatism, terrorism or intentional economic upheaval. The law will also provide a mechanism for Chinese agencies to operate directly in Hong Kong. The timing coincides with a delayed vote in Hong Kong later this week on a bill that would outlaw parodying or disrespecting the Chinese national anthem, another measure generating ire among Hong Kong protesters.

In the past year, China has grown more assertive in its international diplomacy, lashing out at anything it considers a challenge to Chinese national unity or criticism of Chinese actions. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated already-tense exchanges between China and several Western countries, but despite criticism and threats of political and economic sanctions, Beijing remains undeterred. The 100th anniversary of the CCP is an important piece of China’s narrative to reinforce Chinese nationalism and challenge what it sees as an outdated and unfair Western world order.

With rising international efforts to constrain China’s economic and political rise, Beijing cannot allow Hong Kong, a Chinese city, to remain a challenge to central authority. The politics of one country, two systems no longer resonate, and leaving Hong Kong to its own devices no longer aids China’s Taiwan policy. For Hong Kong, this means an acceleration of reintegration, and a more rapid erosion of special status — something that will likely trigger a further acceleration of corporate diversification or relocation from Hong Kong, challenging its status as a financial center. For Taiwan, it means increased economic and military pressure from the mainland. And for the world, it means China will use its political, economic and, if need be, military might to assert its sovereignty over its periphery, including Taiwan and the South China Sea.

Rodger Baker is the Senior VP of Strategic Analysis at Stratfor. He leads Stratfor’s strategic thinking on global issues and future trends.

Asia, Foreign Policy

The Contradictory Nature of U.S.-Japan Relations

2 Comments

This article has been republished with permission from our partner, Stratfor. The original version was first published in Stratfor’s WORLDVIEW and can be found here.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s Memorial Day weekend visit to Japan serves as a reminder of the complex relationship between the United States and Japan. In addition to ceremonial events, meeting the new emperor and visiting U.S. military personnel, President Trump held discussions with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe about trade frictions (driven by the United States’ nearly $68 billion trade deficit with Japan) and regional security concerns ranging from North Korea to China to Iran. This contrast between bilateral trade competition and mutual security cooperation in many ways exemplifies the modern U.S.-Japan relationship.

Mutual and Conflicting Interests

U.S.-Japanese security and economic interests have been intertwined and often at odds with one another. This has played out through recent history, from the time Commodore Matthew Perry’s “Black Ships” sailed into Edo Bay in 1853, through the post-World War I distribution of territories and the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty, to U.S. restrictions on Japanese access to key industrial resources in the late 1930s and beyond. This duality was further ensconced after World War II and has defined modern U.S.-Japanese relations. In what later became known as the Yoshida Doctrine, for then-Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida, Japan largely relegated its national security and defense to the United States and instead focused its resources and efforts on reconstruction and building a modern economy.

Japan’s strategic location in the Pacific gave Tokyo quite a bit of leeway in its relationship with the United States. The outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 solidified Japan as a key component of the U.S. defense architecture to contain the spread of communism in Asia, with Japan serving as an off-shore support base for U.S. operations in Korea and later in Indochina. The 1951 Security Treaty between the two, which would undergo several evolutions, provided basing rights for the United States and strengthened the importance of Japan in U.S. defense planning and posture. Japan’s location also served U.S. efforts to bottle up the Soviet Pacific Fleet during the Cold War.

Though Washington convinced Japan to stand up its Self-Defense Forces, Tokyo often held firmly to the Yoshida Doctrine, limiting its own indigenous military capacity while building up its economic might. Japan provided financial support for U.S. basing (effectively outsourcing its own national defense) and moved rapidly from an import substitution economy to that of an industrial powerhouse. The phrase “Made in Japan” underwent a radical transformation, from being a sign of cheap goods to an indicator of leading high-end technology and quality manufacturing. Initially, Japan’s economic focus over security responsibilities drew quiet criticism from the U.S. over Tokyo not pulling its weight in the alliance, but until the early 1990s, this was mostly rhetoric rather than any serious bone of contention.

Rising Trade Discord

The first major crisis in trade between the United States and Japan began in 1973 with the Arab oil embargo, triggered by the Yom Kippur War. The resulting oil shock opened the way for a brief but significant surge in Japanese auto sales in the United States. Japanese car sales picked up again in the late 1970s, at a time when U.S. automakers were facing rising economic problems of their own, and the competition led to outbreaks of rhetorical (and at times literal) “Japan bashing,” leading Tokyo to apply voluntary export restrictions by 1981 to try and ease trade tensions. The automotive industry was an early focus of competition, but throughout the 1980s it was the emerging high technology arena that became a key focal point. The rising trade dispute was further heightened by expanding Japanese investments in the United States, raising cries of America being sold to Japan.

By the late 1980s, U.S. and Japanese trade frictions had come to a head. Inside Japan, a nascent sense of nationalism had emerged during the previous decade, and in 1989 then-Minister of Transport (and later Tokyo Governor) Shintaro Ishihara penned a book with Sony Chairman Akio Morita titled “The Japan That Can Say No.” The book echoed the sentiment that Japan had left its national interests in U.S. hands for too long, and it was time for the country to stand up, assert its own position and say “no” to U.S. demands. Amid the small but significant camp calling for a stronger and more independent Japan, and given rising anti-Japanese sentiment in the United States, Washington used a combination of unilateral and multilateral dialogues and diplomatic tools to chip away at what it portrayed as Japan’s unfair trade practices.

The mismatch between U.S. security and economic interests that was obvious during Trump’s visit to Japan is not an anomaly but a baseline element of the relationship between the two Pacific partners.

The result was the floating of the Japanese yen, changes in investment and industrial policies, and as a secondary consequence the decline of Japan from a rapidly growing economic power to a country that slipped into 25 years of relative economic malaise. Significantly, Washington targeted the Japanese economy even in the midst of the Cold War, at a time when the United States was deeply at odds with the Soviet Union, and thus where the Japanese alliance was a critical security component. The apparent mismatch between U.S. security and economic interests that was obvious during Trump’s recent visit to Japan, then, is not an anomaly but is rather a baseline element of the relationship between the two Pacific partners.

Continuing a Pattern of Past Relations

In this context, what appears on the surface to be counterintuitive — engaging in strategic competition with China while simultaneously attacking trade relations with key ally Japan — matches a pattern of past relations. The structure of the U.S. government and society frequently leads to seemingly contradictory policies on economic and national security interests, in contrast to countries like China or even Japan in the 1960s through the 1980s. For Tokyo, this is not a new situation, nor is it one that the Japanese perceive as fundamentally straining their security relationship with the United States. In many ways, that aspect of the alliance is growing even more significant as Japan moves further away from its strict interpretation of both the Yoshida Doctrine and the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution. Tokyo no longer sees its national security as something to leave in U.S. hands, but neither does it see an advantage in breaking from the U.S. security orbit.

Over the past several decades, Japan has slowly but steadily moved its defense capabilities from being a supplement to U.S. forces to be a complement to them. And, in some ways, it has even begun to take on some regional security responsibilities itself. This was driven by a combination of factors: The evolving North Korean security situation beginning in the late 1990s; the rise of China, particularly over the past decade; and by the more recent encouragement of the United States for its regional allies to take on more local responsibility. Washington wants to reframe burden sharing from primarily financial and basing support to concrete action, encouraging its allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific to take on more responsibility. And Japan is now ready to reemerge from its quarter-century malaise.

Japan’s strategic location, advanced technological know-how, and parallel interest in countering a rapidly rising China reinforce its ongoing and expanding security cooperation with the United States. At the same time, Tokyo’s advanced economy and primary position as a maritime trading nation continue to stir competition in its relations with the United States. It is this duality that defines U.S.-Japan relations, and it is something that is unlikely to fade away any time soon.

Rodger-Baker (1)Rodger Baker is the Senior VP of Strategic Analysis at Stratfor. He leads Stratfor’s strategic thinking on global issues and future trends.