Second Time is the Charm

 

 As I wait for my flight across Asia to Germany and then Denmark (civ-mil conference in Copenhagen), I thought I would look back at what I observed and learned from my second trip to

South Korea.  The big lesson is that I enjoyed it more the second time.  Sure, the first time I got to check out the DMZ, and I think I had more, clearer interviews, but I wandered a bit further this time, got to see more neighborhoods, and then, went to the other end of the peninsula to very pretty Busan.  

No Zombies on This Train to Busan

One of the joys of my style of fieldwork--two weeks or so at a time--is that I have to figure out what to do with the weekends in between.  I can't expect interview subjects to meet with me on the weekend, soooooo I have to find something to do.  During my first trip to South Korea five years ago, I spent one of the weekend days during a DMZ tour--a tour bus took us to various sites along the DMZ including going into one tunnel that the North Koreans had dug.  Very cool!  This time?  I decided to go to Busan.

The New Project Begins: Seoul Fieldreport #1

 I am in South Korea for about two weeks to start my part of the next big project: understanding the relationships between defence agencies and the militaries they are supposed to, um, uh, something.  A few years ago, I would have said oversee, but this project essentially started with an interview with a ministry of defense official who said his agency's role was to protect the military from the civilians, which is very much the opposite of oversight.  So, Phil Lagassé, Ora Szekley, and myself are traveling to a bunch of countries to catalog the various roles that these agencies think they have and then to explain the variation.  Tis another cool project that engages in heaps of comparative civil-military relations.

I started on this road by accident.  The experience I had in the Pentagon raised questions about NATO, but once I realized officers wearing two hats, their NATO role and their national command responsibilities, would always care more about the national hat, the research would have to take place in a variety of national capitals, rather than in Brussels or Mons (the military hq of NATO).  And that was cool for me as it meant lots of interesting travel, many fascinating interviews, and eventually my favorite book: NATO in Afghanistan: Fighting Together, Fighting Alone.  It essentially asked why countries had different rules for their contingents in the field--who had to call whom for permission for what kinds of activities.

Which, of course, then lead to the next question: is anyone watching to see if those contingents are staying within the rules?  Since many countries had legislatures writing those rules, we wondered if they watched to see if those rules actually constrained behavior.  Early conversations with Canadian parliamentarians suggested not so much, and we found that Canada was not alone in that.  That book is now awaiting review at a couple of publishers, hopefully to see the light of day at your neighborhood book shop (or online one, anyhow) in ... 2025?  

The next question, as mentioned above, is whether defense agencies are overseeing their armed forces.  Our case selection this time is mostly repeating the previous cases--because we have some understanding, if not expertise, in these cases, we have contacts in these places, so the research should be fairly straightforward.

So, that is why I am in South Korea.  It was a fascinating case for the legislatures book, and is pretty interesting thus far after two interviews.  What have I learned thus far?

• there are places where you can get a private room and a set menu to have a lunch meeting/interview, but wow, the food keeps on coming.  I lost track of how many dishes we had for lunch.  It was terrific, and the room was quiet so I could tape the interview.
  
• I don't remember being turned away from BBQ places last time, but they apparently don't want solo eaters, at least in this neighborhood.
• I need to be more careful as I deleted today's pics.  
• I learned that Google and South Korea are having a spat, so I can't use google maps to give me good walking directions.  I have had to download alternative apps that work ok, but not quite as good.
  
• I need to pay more attention to the signs on tables.  For dinner tonight, I went to a place that serves a variety of basic dishes, and it had a clear sign taped to the place where one can use a screen to order food: foreigners order at the counter. I got handed a multilingual menu, pointed what I wanted, paid, and sat down.  When my number came up, I got my food and sat down.  But no silverware, no chopsticks.  There was a self-serve hutch that had forces, glasses, and some side dish stuff. No chopsticks no napkins, no spoons.  Turns out the spoon/chopstick markings on the table indicated a sneaky side drawer containing those and napkins.  I only realized that 3/4s of the way through the meal when I noticed someone accessing their stuff.
• 
  I learned garlic fried chicken is really good for dinner and also good cold for breakfast.
  
• I am off my game a bit, not just with deleted pics, but my taxi from the airport train took me to the wrong hotel--there are two hotels of the same name here, and I knew that, so I should have been clearer.  Not a huge deal, but at the end of a very long travel day, it was not welcome.
  

 I ran into a display of 70 years of US-ROK alliance at the Museum of Contemporary History.

More reports from the field and perhaps fewer deleted pics in the days ahead.

 

Random Research Observations and that Whole Japan-Korea Thing

One of the enduring challenges for the United States and other countries seeking to build more institutions and stability in East Asia (pre-Trump, of course) is that South Korea and Japan don't get along.  Sure, we see news stories all time, like the South Koreans erecting Comfort Women statues near Japanese consulates and all that, but I could not help but note it being a recurring tangent in a number of interviews I had in South Korea over the past two weeks.

I was meeting with politicians, retired military officers (who all seem to be professors after retirement), experts and others for the big project, so I was not focused on asking about ROK-Japan relations, just like I didn't ask in Japan last year about the relationship.  But stuff comes up:

"The governing party wants to diversify its alliance relations so that it is not quite so dependent on the US, so they are seeking to improve relations with Russia, India, Indonesia ....."  Notice who is omitted.

"We are working to develop responses to threats, such as North Korea, China, Japan ...."

This was a pretty striking contrast as South Korea rarely came up in Japan.  It kind of reminds me of Texas Tech being ignored by Texas A&M, which was more focused on the rivalry with U of Texas (insert South Korea, Japan and China respectively).

I didn't go to a war museum in Japan unless one counts the Yasukuni Shrine, so it is hard to compare with the War Memorial in Seoul.  So, nope, I didn't see the Japanese version of this:

These two displays, very much in the central hall of the War Memorial, are of the Dokdo Islands (Korea's name) or Takeshima (Japan's name).  This site covers the issue fairly well.

Anyhow, the point du jour is that I got to see up close glimpses of Korean attitudes about Japan, and, well, they are not much of a foundation for any kind of deeper security relationship.  The stuff we hear about seems to be pretty real.  Which means my pessimism for East Asian security is multidimensional.

Is the DMZ the Oxiest of Oxymorons?

The Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea is the most militarized places on (and below) Earth.  Yesterday, I went on a bus tour to see it and lived to tell the tale.  I have always regretted not going to West Berlin during my summer eurailing a few years before the wall fell.  I guess I got this visit to the DMZ just in time before it becomes a zone of peace and happiness with the magic fairy dust that Trump is sprinkling (ok, I no longer see war as likely because it is now perhaps somewhat less likely than simply selling out Japan and South Korea... woot?).

End of Week 1 in Seoul: Random Observations

I haven't been blogging much as I have been pretty fried by the joy of transcription.  The downside of super-interesting interviews is the process of turning my handwritten notes and recordings into documents on my computer.  On the bright side, doing so in an ill-setup hotel room has reminded me that my ergonomic setups at home and at my office are, indeed, ergonomic.  I manage, but it makes additional computer work not too attractive.  Still, I learn and I observe.  So:

• Douglas MacArthur would have tenure here.  That is, old soldiers don't die or fade away--they become professors.  My fixer lined up a bunch of interviews with profs, and I said that I didn't need to meet so many of my kind.  She told me that I wanted to meet retired mil types and that is where they are.
• Anecdata once again gets trumped by reality.  If I didn't know South Korea had declining fertility (it is super costly to have kids and educate them), I would swear that this place has no problems.  I have seen many of kids and many young canoodling couples, but what I notice ain't representative.  
• I learned today that Seoul used to have the awful, unhelpful system of Tokyo where instead of streetnames and clear addresses, they had the numbers that represented quadrant-subquadrant-subsub-quandrant.  Yuck.   Only five years or so, it was changed.  
• I don't know why I feel more comfy with Japanese food than Korean, but I do.  Tonight's street fair made it less challenging as the food trucks had more English so that I could avoid intestines and raw octopus easily.
• I learned some Korean history thanks to the National Museum, which reinforced some of the stuff I noticed at the War Memorial.   The history of patterns of kingdoms unifying the peninsula and dividing it was kind of striking.  As was the history of invasions from Japan and China and relying on the Chinese to thwart the Japanese.
• Can't help but think about M*A*S*H when I see destinations on the subway that seem familiar, such as Gimpo.  Or when I see helos like this: 

• The National Museum is huge.... which I guess is what usually happens with such places.

• Oh, and the right wing types here also wear red hats apparently:

Anyhow, I have not done that much tourism since I have been very busy interviewing--I even had one today on a Saturday.  Next week, I will be averaging 2-3 interviews a day, which is quite good.  I was concerned that I would not get many interviews, especially with elections next month, but once again, better to be lucky than good.  I have a great fixer who has lined up really interesting people and two great interpreters.  And I definitely depend on the kindness of strangers--these folks willing to talk to me. 

Seoul Research, Week 1: Good Research Problem

I was initially frustrated as it did not look like I would be talking to enough people or the right ones, but thanks to keeps of generous folks and a great fixer, my two weeks here are going to be very fruitful even if elections next month mean that I only talk to a few legislators.   Indeed, I will need to shop this weekend for more writing pads! 

I still have time to do some tourism before or after interviews, so I did return to the War Memorial when it was open yesterday.  Good thing I did since at least one interview subject said South Korea had not been in Afghanistan--the displays at the War Memorial suggested otherwise!  What else have I learned there or elsewhere since my previous post?

• The tour guide brings you to a memorial room first and then when the lights go on, you realize you are standing on glass over some bones (fake or real?).  
• I felt kind of like I did at the Hermitage in Leningrad (it was Leningrad at the time) where the group behind us was German.  Yesterday, the group behind us was Chinese.  Without Chinese intervention, there would be no North Korea, and Seoul would have only been lost and taken once.
• The coverage of a NK raid aimed at the Blue House made me realize I had taken a picture of the President's residence/White House equivalent.

• 

  Blue House

   The War Memorial also had some "4D" experiences-shaky benches and 3 movies for the invasion of Incheon that turned around the Korean War and for a film featuring a hypothetical F15 raid of NK

• Really moving sculpture of a tear drop made of dog tags to mark the sacrifices and sadness that came with the international effort to reverse the North Korean invasion.

• How about some more perspective sauce: gas masks in the subway stations?  Not for fire (ok, probably not) but for the WMD that Trump will demand NK gets rid of.

• Great names for coffee places here:
  

Anyhow, things are going great.  And the South Koreans I talk to seem to be cautiously optimistic about the situation with Trump and North Korea.  Wishful thinking for the win?

Day 2 of Seoul: Excellent Research, Mediocre Tourist Decision-Making and Random Observations

Well, if I have to have great interview and meh tourism or great tourism and meh interview, the former is obviously superior.  Today started with a meeting with one of my interpreters.  She is still in interpreter school, but is doing great.  Since she majored in strategic studies as an undergrad, she knows what I am looking for.  So, then we went to meet what I thought at the time would be the only legislator I would be interviewing.  My fixer found another one willing to talk to me--the challenge is that there are elections in June so folks are busy.

Anyhow, the interview subject du jour had only 30 minutes, but he filled that time with heaps of research goodness.  He had a copy of our questionnaire and was giving very complete answers while not filibustering us too much.  I just let him and the interpreter go back and forth rather than getting the interpretation and then asking follow ups since we had a strict time constraint.  I may end up asking more questions by email.   Anyhow, this interview was exactly what I needed, and South Korea may prove to be a very interesting case as it seems to be much closer to the US than to Brazil in terms of relevance of legislatures in civ-mil in Presidential systems.  Many more conversations this week and next to see if what I heard today is just one person's view or a good depiction.

This row after row of plaques naming all of the South Koreans
killed in the war provided a heavy dose of perspective

Because I had few notes to transcribe and my interpre er had to take the recording and turn them into English for me, I didn't have to spend the afternoon transcribing.  So, I decided to do some tourism (the last bit of grading and such is for rainy days ahead).  Turns out Monday is a lousy day for tourism as I decided to go to the War Memorial.... which is closed on Mondays.  Dumb Steve.  The good news is that there were many interesting statues and hunks of military equipment to look at, including a B-52 bomber, a Korean made tank, heaps of aircraft and a lifesize model of a ship the North Koreans attacked.  See below for some pics

Note that the attack on this patrol ship was during the 2002 World Cup
and after a 2000 NK/SK summit

After this, I went to Namsan--the mountain in the middle of Seoul where there is an observation tower.  This as a mistake--it was hazy.  Yesterday, the skies were super-clear.  I should have waited for a better day but wishful thinking too over.  So, pics like this:

Oh well.  There were heaps of South Koreans putting locks on fences and elsewhere, lots of sweets and strange marketing.  Which led to this:

Oh my.  Tomorrow, no tourism as I have two interviews than a dinner with an East Asian security expert and my original fixer (too connected, so conflicts of interest kicked in, alas). 

Anyhow, so far, so good.  I will make better tourism decisions when I have the chance... I hope.  Still have not figured out the restaurant scene here--Tokyo was much easier.

One Day of Peace in South Korea

Now that we have peace in our time,* South Korea is safe for me to do research.  Actually, I am here to understand South Korea's civil-military relations as part of the Dave/Phil/Steve project, and I am only here this year because of the impeachment fairy's efforts last year.

Because jet lag is a thing, I tend to fly in a day or two early to get some rest so that I don't fall asleep on the couch of someone I am meeting (I learned that the hard way way back in my Joint Staff days).  So, I spent today walking around the part of Seoul closest to me.  As it turns out, this is where a massive palace complex is: Gyeonbokgung Palace. 

Even before I got there, I had seen signs about past Japanese perfidy, so, no, I don't have much hope for South Korea and Japan to move beyond their pasts. 

Pretty much most of the signs next to various buildings indicated that the Japanese destroyed them at some point.  Maybe it is my confirmation bias, but I didn't see quite this much this kind of signage in Tokyo.  Also, Tokyo had more fires and earthquakes whereas Seoul has far more occupation.

I also could not help but notice the ubituity of shelter signs.  While most were subway entrances, this one is of a small museum.

Wearing costumes while touring is a thing not just in Japan but here as well.  I saw both many people wearing traditional garb while walking around this palace complex and later many stores that rent them out.   I don't think I have seen many people in North America or Europe do anything like this. 

 Here's something I don't remember seeing in Japan: food that comes delivered in mini-toilets.  No thanks.

The trip over was uneventful except for passing through Shanghai airport--I had to go through customs twice--as an arrival and as a departure.  With security lines in between, it was most annoying.  I had plenty of time between planes, but not fun.  I did binge Brockmire on the flight over--Hank Azaria plays a wildly inappropriate baseball announcer on his last chance--announcing a minor minor league team called the Frackers.  I probably woke some people up with my laughter, as it was a very good time.  

Speaking of pop culture, Mrs. Spew and I saw Infinity War the night before I left.  I probably won't blog about it until I see it a second time--just too much stuff happened and much need to process.

Anyhow, I am tired and sleepy, after a very long flight and after much walking around, so here's some of the better shots from today

Decoupling and the Alliance Dilemma: Get Out!?

As Glenn Snyder and then Patricia Weitsman so clearly identified (as well as Jack Snyder and Thomas Christensen), alliances always pose two threats to those who join: that they might be abandoned despite reassures to the contrary AND that they might get dragged into a war they do not want to fight.  So, abandonment vs. entrapment are the dual horns of the alliance dilemma.  So very relevant today as the story du jour is of "Decoupling" South Korea from the US.

It has long been a concern that North Korea would maneuver to separate the US from South Korea, and they have made a heap of progress lately.  This morning there are reports of talks leading to more negotiations between North and South Korea.  The concern is that South Korea might sign some kind of separate peace, giving into North Korea and leaving the US out. 

For much of the cold war and post-Cold War period, the South Korean concern would be that the US would abandon it.  Jimmy Carter proposed and then reversed himself on pulling the US troops out, as this undermined the credibility of the US commitment to South Korea, for instance.  Just like the Europeans, the South Koreans worried that the US might not show up, that it would be very costly for the US to defend South Korea.  The advent of the North Korean ICBM with the capability to hit the US gave the South Koreans the chance to re-visit all of the "would the US sacrifice Chicago for Bonn or Paris" debates.  So, yes, the South Koreans still fear abandonment and perhaps even more so with an uncertainty engine in the White House who confuses North and South.  You would think that this fear would lead them to focus on tightening the alliance, not decoupling.

Ah, but here's where the other horn of the alliance dilemma gets super-pointy: the US has been making noises about a new Korean war, that a punch in the nose or whatever effort to disarm North Korea, would be harmful to South Korea but not the US.  Indeed, Lindsay Graham has recently agreed with the White House rhetoric of, well, burning South Korea to save American lives.  The South Koreans know only too well that the opening shots of a new Korean war would lead to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dead South Koreans.  So, with all of the war talk in DC, they have good reason to fear being entrapped in a war they do not want.

So, I can't blame the South Koreans for seeking an alternative path, away from the races up the escalation ladders.  The problem, of course, is that if South Korea is decoupled from the US, that the alliance is broken, then North Korea can break its promises to South Korea and the US will find it hard to respond to a fait accompli in the aftermath of US forces being expelled from South Korea (the possible result of decoupling).  Where does Japan fit in all of this?  Completely screwed but that is an alliance that will be broken via other means (trade wars)....

In sum, Trump has made a difficult problem far more challenging.  The no good policy options problem is now far more likely to be all the worst policy problem.  Thanks, Trump.

North Korea, ICBM's and Lousy Policy Alternatives

The toughest thing for folks to accept is that there are often no good policy solutions to a key problem.  North Korea has been that problem for at least two decades.  With the new test where North Korea has proven it can build and launch successfully intercontinental ballistic missiles, there is now greater pressure to do something.

But what is that something and what are the risks?  This is where the Trump administration scares me the most.  Talk of regime change and denuclearization are seriously alarming (see this thread)..  Why has North Korea pursued nuclear weapons? For status, maybe.  Because it fears that outsiders want to change who rules?  Absolutely.  What use are nuclear weapons?  To deter attacks, of course.

Could the US launch a strike to disarm North Korea's limited missile force?  Maybe.  But that would not eliminate North Korea's ability to do much harm--via artillery and maybe even invasion of South Korea.  Whatever mistakes the US makes, South Korea will pay.  There are just too many artillery batteries too close to Seoul for the US to expect any conflict not to have potentially huge risks.

Even the most limited strike risks staggering casualties, because North Korea could retaliate with the thousands of artillery pieces it has positioned along its border with the South. Though the arsenal is of limited range and could be destroyed in days, the United States defense secretary, Jim Mattis, recently warned that if North Korea used it, it “would be probably the worst kind of fighting in most people’s lifetimes.” NYT

And, of course, there is no guarantee that a first strike would eliminate North Korea's small nuclear capability, which would put Tokyo in play as well.  So, a first strike might risk hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of South Koreans and Japanese.

This puts us back into a familiar and uncomfortable reality--nuclear deterrence.  We are deterred from attacking North Korea, and North Korea, as long as it believes a first strike is not imminent, is deterred from attacking the US and its allies. But if it fears a first strike, it may launch first because it might fear the US could decapitate the regime and eliminate much of its arsenal.  This "use or lose" situation is very, very dangerous.  This makes talk of denuclearization and decapitation destabilizing.

I was called a coward last night on twitter by someone who thinks nuclear disarmament is the preferred option.  Is it cowardly to be realistic?  We are not going to get North Korea (or China or Russia or France or Israel or India or Pakistan or the US) to give up its nuclear arms. Believing otherwise, especially in the age of Trump, is foolish.  Also foolish is thinking that using force will produce a good outcome.  It sucks that we do not have good policy options, but this is nothing new.  For twenty years, the US has wanted to strike North Korea and has been deterred by the threats it poses to the neighbors.  For the entire cold war (and to this day), we have had to tolerate the reality of mutual assured destruction--that threatening each other is the worst policy option except for all of the others.  I'd love to find a way out, but I can't see one.

So, when it comes to North Korea, we must focus not on denuclearization but on deterrence and containment.  Unfortunately, the US is currently led by amateurs with no empathy, which means they have a hard time understanding how their signals will be received.  Which means I am scared.