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66. Asia-Pacific Security: Strategic Trends and Military Developments
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Chapter
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Asia-Pacific Security: Strategic Trends and Military Developments 321 By: ROS Size: 7.5" x 10.25" J/No: 03-14474 Fonts: New Baskerville 66. ASIA-PACIFIC SECURITY Strategic Trends and Military Developments DEREK DA CUNHA Reprinted in abridged form from Derek da Cunha, “Asia-Pacific Security: Strategic Trends and Military Developments”, in Southeast Asian Perspectives on Security, edited by Derek da Cunha (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2000), pp. 20–34, by permission of the author and the publisher. THE EVOLVING STRATEGIC SITUATION IN NORTHEAST ASIA North Korea The Korean peninsula remains the key focus of any assessment of security threats in the Asia-Pacific region simply because the peninsula remains one of the most militarized places in the world. Along its side of the 38th parallel, North Korea deploys the world’s largest commando force of more than 80,000 men at the van of a one-million-strong army and enormous concentrations of artillery well within range of many targets across the demilitarized zone,1 including Seoul (where about a quarter of South Korea’s population is located). The prospects for conflict on the peninsula have tended to ebb and flow in recent times as a result of a combination of factors. These have included North Korea’s severe and chronic famine; the North’s sharp economic decline and the attendant realization by the Pyongyang regime that as each year passes, and its weapons systems continue to degrade for lack of spare parts and maintenance, the conventional military balance on the peninsula continues to shift in favour of the South. As the conventional balance shifts, North Korea could well lean more heavily on its arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, including chemical weapons — the sort of weapons, the use of which would be abhorrent to the public conscience and a violation of the most fundamental norms and principles of humanitarian law. In its past conduct, however, the North Korean regime has shown itself oblivious to both the public conscience and humanitarian law. It is unclear how the onset of the financial crisis in South Korea in late 1997 and throughout 1998 would have affected North Korean calculations of the military balance on the peninsula. On the one hand, because of the crisis, the economic gap between the two Koreas had narrowed somewhat, albeit momentarily. As such, 066 AR Ch 66 22/9/03, 12:53 PM 321 322 Derek da Cunha By: ROS Size: 7.5" x 10.25" J/No: 03-14474 Fonts: New Baskerville North Korea might well have felt less insecure. It could have considered less pressing any desire it might have had previously to initiate some kind of military action to forestall a widening of the already significant economic and military lead South Korea possessed over it. In other words, paradoxically, the financial crisis that set-in in late 1997 might well have had an indirect stabilizing effect on the Korean peninsula. Putting aside the security implications of the Asian economic crisis, a crisis which now no longer obtains, from the standpoint of June 2000 and the summit between North and South Korean leaders in Pyongyang, it appears that conflict on the peninsula is somewhat remote, though the situation could so easily change due to the unpredictable nature of the North Korean regime. Whatever the scenario, the longer term outlook for the Korean peninsula is unification of some sort between the two Koreas. This could result in a substantial drawdown of U.S. troops from both Korea and Japan. Such a drawdown would ultimately erode stability in Northeast Asia and the wider Asia-Pacific region. Japan If the Korean peninsula is a more immediate security issue in Northeast Asia, uncertainty over the direction of Japanese strategic policy appears to be a potentially longer term issue of concern. In recent times there has been a perception of gradual policy changes affecting Japan’s strategic outlook — the sort of changes that could well prefigure a more assertive Japan in the future.2 Some of the changes that could well see a significant increase in Japanese military capabilities include Japan’s establishment of a Defence Intelligence Headquarters in January 1997 to co-ordinate all defence-related intelligence activities,3 suggesting a greater reliance by Japan on its own intelligence capabilities and, inversely, less on those of the United States. Yet another change has involved the guidelines to the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty; this could well see an enhanced role for Japan in the alliance...