Minimize our security risks before it’s too late

The time has come for South Korea to minimize the diplomatic and security risks before it’s too late.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has nearly completed the lineup of his diplomatic and security team for his second term. Trump selected most of the new faces from people in their 40s and 50s, former field officers in the military, his Florida connections and hardliners on China. The decision reflects the maverick ex-president’s determination to change the establishment. But it also deepens our security concerns about North Korea.

The most noteworthy in the new lineup is Trump’s exclusion of generals in the defense and security fields, as suggested by his recruitment of House Rep. Michael Waltz, a former colonel, as his national security adviser, and Fox News anchor Peter Hegseth, a former major in the U.S. Army, as his defense secretary. Tulsi Gabbard, a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, has been picked as the Director of National Intelligence.

The three recruits certainly have experiences in wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Kuwait, but their ranks are relatively low. Despite their sufficient combat experiences on the battlefields, grade officers can show limits in seeing the big picture, or a strategic approach to armed conflicts. Also, they don’t have much experience with the ROK-U.S. Combined Forces Command.

During Trump’s first term, James Mattis, a retired Marine Corps four-star general, served as defense secretary, and H.R. McMaster, a retired Army lieutenant general served as Trump’s national security adviser. These veterans armed with strategic minds helped control Trump’s impulsive behavior, like his threat to withdraw the U.S. forces from South Korea. His uneasiness about such veterans’ advice may have convinced him to not recruit them in his second term.

Marco Rubio, the senator from Florida, became a persona non grata twice in the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s sanctions list. Given his strong push for the act on banning TikTok in the U.S. and the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, Rubio is an iconic hardliner on China. Waltz also shows a hawkish stance toward China, as implied by his insistence on reinforcing Taiwan’s armaments. The two men will likely shift the U.S.-China relations from de-risking to decoupling.

If such hardliners ignore the resolution of North Korean nuclear threats and instead concentrate on China bashing in Trump’s second term, our leverage between the U.S. and China can shrink noticeably. They could also start nuclear reduction talks with the North after skipping the South or want to pull out the USFK.

Our government must wisely deal with Trump’s picks for U.S. diplomacy and security teams. The time has come for South Korea to minimize the diplomatic and security risks before it’s too late.