Yoon's strategic and tactical dilemmas

By Park Jung-won

At the heart of the North Atlantic Treaty is Article 5, which stipulates that if one member state is invaded, all other member states should automatically intervene for its protection. It is this clause that led some Eastern European countries to join NATO, having felt threatened by Russia's military revival under President Vladimir Putin, a leader obsessed with nostalgia for the former Soviet Union.

It is also the power of Article 5 that has left Ukraine regretful for not having joined NATO, and that has now made Sweden and Finland eager to join NATO as soon as possible. For South Korea, however, there is no such automatic intervention clause in its military alliance treaty with the United States.

President Yoon Suk-yeol's participation, albeit only as leader of a partner country, in the NATO Summit to be held in Madrid on June 29 and 30 is undoubtedly a sign of South Korea's growing diplomatic status. As the confrontation between "dictatorial countries" and "democratic countries" intensifies at the same time as military and political ties among dictatorial countries are consolidating, South Korea can benefit from deterring immediate threats from North Korea and future threats from China by strengthening its alliances through the resumption of trilateral security cooperation with the U.S. and Japan and enhancing its relationship with NATO.

North Korea has declared by implication that it could preemptively use nuclear weapons against South Korea in serious security situations. Considering that South Korea is unable to retaliate proportionately to the graveness of the North's nuclear threat, it is necessary to open and utilize a channel of dialogue with NATO's Nuclear Planning Group (NPG) to secure a consensus on the possible redeployment of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea.

North Korea's indiscriminate advancement of its nuclear arsenal and continued missile-test provocations have been proceeding without any institutional constraint of further sanctions, as the U.N. Security Council has become virtually incapacitated due to the non-cooperation of China and Russia since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine War.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un presided over a Workers' Party session recently and reaffirmed the principle of "power for power and head-on contest." North Korea's seventh nuclear test will only be a matter of time, with a high likelihood that the test will be for a tactical rather than strategic nuclear weapon that is mainly aimed at South Korea, instead of the U.S.

In particular, after the North's seventh nuclear test demonstrates its level of sophistication, if South Korea and the U.S. do not provide any carrot to engage Pyongyang substantially, North Korea will most likely begin limited local provocations against South Korea's territory to attract their attention. This could take the extreme form of occupying one of the five islands in the West Sea in a surprise invasion.

If South Korea and the U.S. did not react appropriately to such military aggression (amid the North's implied threat that it could use tactical nuclear weapons), then just as when the Lee Myung-bak administration failed to retaliate proportionately against the bombardment of Yeonpyeong Island in 2010, what further moves the North might make if it perceives no credible deterrence is an open question.

South Korea could end up facing a very similar situation to that of Ukraine, which is currently being pressured by some of its allies to negotiate peace with Russia against its will. Such negotiations would likely feature some South Korean allies taking sympathetic positions toward the North in order to avoid an all-out military confrontation on the Korean Peninsula.

In this process, Choe Son-hui, North Korea's foreign minister who is familiar with the U.S., would play a crucial role in dealing with Washington, and Ri Son-gwon, the head of the North's ruling party's united front department, who is described as having a very aggressive temperament, would deal with South Korea.

Ri would likely treat his Southern counterpart with a very combative attitude. South Korea's stock market could plummet as a state of total panic ensues. China would also pretend to lull North Korea at this stage, while U.S. forces stationed in the South would be reluctant to retaliate against the North. North Korea would then publicize that the U.S. had no choice but to continue its passive stance under the circumstances because of the threat of tactical nuclear weapons wielded by the North.

Even if North Korean special forces withdrew from the occupied island after peace negotiations, it would represent a tremendous victory for the North by proving its substantial military superiority over the South. In other words, if this scenario were to actually happen, the nature of any negotiations with the North would change, such that the focus would be on deterring the North's immediate further provocation rather than its eventual complete denuclearization.

Against this backdrop of a changed security context on the Korean Peninsula, South Korea would find it difficult to escape becoming North Korea's virtual security hostage, finding itself subject to all kinds of demands and blackmail from the North.

While the above scenario may fortunately be unlikely, it is not however inconceivable. National security matters should always assume the worst-case scenario. In order to prevent this nightmare from becoming a reality, South Korea and the U.S. need to further materialize a substantial deterrence strategy with detailed action plans in preparation for the North's military provocations in the form of localized warfare.

It is thus difficult to comprehend why Yoon has drawn a clear line ruling out the possible redeployment of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea. His refusal to consider this option appears to be strategically and diplomatically short-sighted and foolish.

Park Jung-won (park_jungwon@hotmail.com), Ph.D. in law from the London School of Economics (LSE), is a professor of international law at Dankook University.