Defense cost sharing between the United States and Korea has been a topic of hot debate over years. As for Korea, she has hardly set mid- and long-term principles and criteria for the defense cost sharing in the process of the negotiations thereof, wh...
Defense cost sharing between the United States and Korea has been a topic of hot debate over years. As for Korea, she has hardly set mid- and long-term principles and criteria for the defense cost sharing in the process of the negotiations thereof, while responding short-sighted to the US unilateral requests for cost sharing without any systematic policy direction to have the amount of shared defense cost determined. Thus, the defense cost sharing remains a challenge to be tackled in association with the US military presence here in Korea. With such a background in mind, this study was aimed at suggesting some desirable directions for the defense cost sharing between the United States and Korea in consideration of a new defense policy environment. To this end, the researcher reviewed the relevant theories to set a framework for the logical development of this study and thereupon, compared other nations' cases to asses our defense cost sharing policy and address the problems.
As a result, it could be confirmed that Korea has shared more defense costs compared with other nations and in consideration of our financial capacity. Nevertheless, such a high defense cost sharing has not adequately been reflected or even underestimated in our national policy, and despite to such a waste of national budget, Korea has sharply conflicted with and confronted the United States who has requested for an increase of defense cost sharing in the negotiation between two allies.
Such phenomena may have been caused by some inevitable external factors but by our internal factors as well. First of all, Korea has demonstrated a poor capacity of negotiation for the United States. There may be such fundamental reasons for the phenomena as excessive reliance on the United States for our national security, but the Korean government seems not to have been able to develop some persuasive logics or policy alternatives but to have responded impromptu to the US requests. Moreover, as the policy-implementing system was inefficient, national resources may have been wasted or underestimated below their actual values. From such a viewpoint, this study suggested the following policy directions to solve the above problems, enhance our capacity of negotiation for the United States and determine the level of our defense cost sharing suitable to our economic capacity;
First, in order to enhance our capacity for negotiation of defense cost sharing, it is necessary to reorganize the current small negotiation team into 'aspecial negotiation team for defense cost sharing' consisting of expert groups.
As in the case of the United States using the special ambassador for defense cost sharing, Korea needs to establish a special or independent organization which can face the United States in the negotiation in a more professional way.
As an example, the current negotiation team may well be transferred from Ministry of Defense to Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Since the policy-makers of Defense Ministry tend to focus on ROK-US solidarity conducive to the deterrence strength of the ROK-US Combined forces, they may not well be positioned to respond appropriately to the US requests for increase of Korea's defense cost sharing. Accordingly, if the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade should take over the negotiation, the defense cost sharing would be effectively negotiated in association with other various Korea-US pending issues.
Second, it is deemed required of the Korean government to carefully manage and precisely analyze the data about defense cost sharing policies and negotiations to improve our position in the defense cost sharing. As an example, it is necessary to standardize and encode the details of supports extended by the Korean government to the US military in Korea. Since the criteria or methods for evaluation of direct and indirect supports in kinds are not consistent, the resultant evaluations have differed. In order to solve such a problem, it is essential to recruit experts from various fields and thereby, standardize the evaluations or calculations through consultations or discussions with them, while constructing a computerized database whereby the defense cost sharing budgets executed by relevant government organizations can be immediately known without any complicated manual work.
Third, it is also required to enhance transparency of the decision-making procedures and negotiation processes for defense cost sharing and thereby, improve consistency of our defense cost sharing policies and their implementations. To this end, the procedures and processes need to be open to the public via mass media to help create a public opinion necessary for an effective implementation of the policies, and in this vein, the administration is obliged to cooperate smoothly with the National Assembly to improve various legal and institutional mechanism for implementation of the policies.
Fourth, it is essential to approach the defense cost sharing problem from an economic perspective as much as possible in order to enhance our capacity of negotiation. Namely, the conventional logic grounded on our security situation and in favor of South-North Korean relations or Korea-US solidarity should be replaced by an economic logic based on cool-headed and objective grounds. In this regard, mid- and long-term economic negotiation strategies and logics need to be developed to check any excessive increase of defense cost sharing, while minimizing the conflicts between Korea and the United States.
Fifth, it is deemed necessary not to allow a variety of our direct an dindirect supports for the US military presence in Korea to be underestimated in the negotiation for the defense cost sharing. That is, the Korean government is obliged to make efforts to have such various supports reflected m the US evaluation of our defense cost sharing, whether they have been ignored or underestimated. To this end, we need to divert such non-budget-based incentives as reduction of electric bill or exemption of VAT into budget-based
incentives. Then, other 'opportunity costs or implied ones' may be reflected in evaluation of our direct supports extended to the US military presence in Korea.
Lastly but not least importantly, the above policy alternatives should be implemented not to do any harm to Korea-US relationship of alliance, inconsideration of the reality that the US forces m Korea as essential military power deterring North Korea are playing highly sophisticated military functions difficult for the Korean forces.