How to intervene in the election in the South

The best measure is to respond to the North’s actions in a cool and yet stern manner while maintaining thorough readiness.

Lee Chul-jae

The author is head of the Institute for Military and Security Affairs and senior defense reporter of the JoongAng Ilbo. A landmark deal on Sept. 19, 2018 between South and North Korea — aimed at reducing tensions in the Korean Peninsula by restricting military operations — to is de facto dead. After the Yoon Suk Yeol administration on Nov. 22 suspended the no-fly zone specified in Article One to resume reconnaissance flights along the border in response to the North’s alleged successful launch of a military spy satellite, Pyongyang announced a complete abandonment of the pact on the following day. North Korea immediately refilled and armed the guard posts in the demilitarized zone as well as the soldiers in the Joint Security Area at Panmunjom while reactivating its artillery along the coast of the West Sea.

South Korea is “watching the movements of North Korea to take correspondent actions” without responding with a complete scrapping of the agreement. But since North Korea will most likely resume military exercises on the frontline in defiance of the agreement, the hard-won 2018 military agreement between the two Koreas in Pyongyang will be entirely null and void sooner or later.

On April 27, 2018, former President Moon Jae-in and his North Korean counterpart Kim Jong-un agreed in Panmunjom to aggressively cooperate for a “lasting peace in the Korean Peninsula.” Defense ministers of the two states in Pyongyang signed a Comprehensive Military Agreement in September that year to cease all hostile military actions to ease tensions and build trust between the two countries.

But the military agreement went up in the air after the second summit between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump fell through in Hanoi in February 2019. Since Pyongyang lost the chance to leverage Seoul to draw concessions from Washington, its military agreement with South Korea became a burdensome obstacle.

In a saber-rattling move after the breakdown in the Hanoi talks, Kim ordered a firing from an artillery launcher-stocked tiny islet to the maritime borders in the West Sea. Although the action outright violated the military agreement’s clause to cease all live-fire and maritime maneuvers, the Moon administration simply responded with “regret” against the provocation.

Pyongyang went on to disrespect the military agreement by firing towards the South’s unmanned guard post, blowing up the inter-Korean liaison office in North Korea, killing a South Korean civil servant in the West Sea, firing missiles towards the maritime borders dubbed the Northern Limit Line, and sending surveillance drones to the South’s airspace.

The accord had a fatal flaw from its birth since the commitment entirely relied on Pyongyang’s goodwill. The North obviously did not intend to play fair. It cherry-picked provisions that could serve its own interests. The establishment of a no-fly zone for all types of aircraft entirely benefited North Korea, as it did not have to worry about surveillance assets from South Korea and the U.S. looking over their movements along the border. That’s why North Korea terminated the agreement after Seoul suspended the provision.

Defense authorities of the two states had met only twice on the commander-level, and once in the working-level between June and September 2018, and fine-tuned details through fax. They lacked time to meet the deadline for the signing in Pyongyang. An official from the Moon administration said that North Korea was eager to reach the military agreement. The economic aid the North wanted most from Seoul had limits due to UN sanctions. Instead, Pyongyang went out for military concessions from Seoul. North Korea demanded a no-fly zone and cessation in military drills and South Korea complied.

Some fear the possibility of war-like military tensions building up due to the North’s provocations. The fuss is what Pyongyang is after. North Korea is expected to ratchet up hostile offensives to provoke South Korea. Sydney Seiler, a former North Korea analyst at the National Intelligence Council, told Radio Free Area that there is a possibility that the North may consider a more assertive and potentially dangerous limited provocation next year in an attempt to erode the confidence of South Koreans in U.S. extended deterrence. Yang Uk, a research fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, projected that North Korea will escalate the level of tensions through the deployment of advanced weapons on the front lines to cause political confusion and influence the next parliamentary election in South Korea in April.

If South Korea wavers, it will be entirely defeated in the game of chicken North Korea is waging. It would also be falling into Pyongyang’s tactics if it responses with a tit-for-tat military action. The best measure is to respond to the North’s actions in a cool and yet stern manner while maintaining thorough readiness.