Episode 58: South Korea & US Asia-Pacific Interests with General Vince Brooks and Ambassador Mark Lippert Part II

Episode Transcript:

Amb. McCarthy: [00:00:11] From the American Academy of Diplomacy. This is the General and the Ambassador. Our podcast brings together senior U.S. diplomats and senior U.S. military leaders to discuss their work together in advancing U.S. national security interests overseas. I'm Ambassador Deborah McCarthy, the producer and host. The General and The Ambassador is a production of the American Academy of Diplomacy in partnership with UNC Global at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This is part two of the General and the Ambassador Podcast with General Vince Brooks and Ambassador Mark Lippert. Well, I want to turn now to the relationship between South Korea and Japan. The United States has invested a lot over the years to strengthen this relationship. History, however, plays a huge role. Between 1910 and 1945, Korea was part of the Japanese empire. And they're sensitive topics related to this occupation, including the issue of comfort women, those Koreans who were forced to provide sex to Japanese soldiers during the thirties and the forties. Can you explain how this issue of comfort women and other historical sensitivities complicate the relationship between these two allies and what steps the United States took during your time to overcome the traditional mistrust?

Amb. Lippert: [00:01:30] This is a rightly very difficult, very complicated emotional time and issue between the Japanese and the South Koreans. And it really strikes a chord in South Korean politics to this day. So it's always a hard thing for the United States to try to get involved in an issue that is so fraught between two important allies of the United States.

Gen. Brooks: [00:01:57] This effort to try to see an improvement in the relationship between South Korea and Japan had been ongoing for many years. It was a matter of concentration for the military commanders of US Indo-Pacific command. During my time there from 2013 to 16 and remained a matter of importance during my time in Korea. And there was progress made. I should say that there was actually very good progress being made. President Park Geun-hye had a lot of guts and move forward on several initiatives with Japan, some of which had domestic implications and alleviate. Ambassador Lippert to talk about in greater detail about how well those actions she took were received. But there are military implications of the relationship. Japan plays a very important role in supporting the United Nations command, which is one of the three military commands on the Korean Peninsula. Seven different bases in Japan are actually U.N. Command bases. And there's a special arrangement with the Japanese government. And those U.N. command bases would provide support to any military operations on the Korean Peninsula. So we had very practical reasons to have a good relationship and to not have that hindered. At the same time, militarily, we could not ignore the political and the social dynamics of that relationship. And the faster we tried to go or the harder we tried to push, the more difficult it became to actually gain progress. So if there's a place where there was strategic patience, it was really in that to move patiently to help convene, to help corral the conversation and not let it drift. That came loose, honestly, in 2017 and 18 as the US approach became much more transactional in some cases even took sides that skewed things and caused South Korea to go into what I call minority politics. They began to throw out all sorts of stops to try to slow things down and move it in a different direction to maintain a degree of leverage. But that really wasn't the case. We actually had some pretty good progress happening in 2016.

Amb. Lippert: [00:03:54] What the US role, when I was there was two things. First, it was more of a facilitator. We weren't going to tell the South Koreans and the Japanese how to resolve this very tough comfort women issue. That is up to the governments in Tokyo and Seoul. They have a long history of talking to each other about this issue and trying to reach an accommodation. Having said that, facilitating, letting both sides know this is important to us, that the relationship is important to us, that they get along and find a way to get along and also to help communicate. So when the two sides did decide to restart negotiations, they had flirted with negotiations and they had gotten close to a deal in years prior. In 15, our role is again to basically facilitate and by 2015, the two sides did reach an agreement that had a number of facets to it. But the two major ones was government payments from the Japanese side to the South Korean victims and to an apology from the Prime Minister of Japan himself. So both of those things occurred. As a result, the relationship did improve and this led to a follow on agreement between the two sides, the General Intelligence Sharing Agreement between the two sides that I think really. Was a direct result of the momentum that occurred from the Comfort Women Agreement. There were other elements that also warmed up. There was a lot more trilateral gatherings at the leader level, at the deputy secretary of state level. There was a lot more coordination on a range of issues, everything from North Korea to cancer research as a result. And a lot of that got unlocked, I think as we proceeded into 16 right before the impeachment and eventual removal from office of President Putin.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:05:40] For a number of years, the U.S. has been working with South Korea to relocate U.S. forces further south in the country, with the cost being borne by both. Can you explain to our listeners how complicated such a massive shift is and how during your time you address the legal, political, logistical challenges of such a massive move?

Gen. Brooks: [00:06:04] It is a very complex undertaking and this kind of thing happens over a series of years. Everything from the construction of new bases. South Korea constructed a massive military installation in the area of Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul, much further south than where the combat forces of the United States had been deployed there to for to the tune of about $10.8 billion. More than 90% of that carried by the South Korean government built a new city. Brand new perfect infrastructure, the largest overseas base we have anywhere in the world. In the meantime, there were programs ongoing to try to create the relocation effort. That was one subset. The main military garrison in Seoul is called Yongsan Garrison. Oddly enough, that had been used by the Japanese occupation and had been used years before by the Chinese as well. So it had long since been a military base for foreign forces. The city of Seoul and the government of the Republic of Korea wanted that back. There is some tension between the two points of view at the federal national level versus the local level as to what it should be and how fast that should happen. Now, I'll defer to Ambassador Lippert to describe more of those dynamics since he had to wrestle with it even more than I did. But the young son relocation meant moving the entire headquarters. All of the families, elementary school, middle school and high school, the food supplies, the energy supplies, everything. So imagine picking up a city of 15 to 20000 people, including children, and relocating everything that sustains them to another place.

Gen. Brooks: [00:07:37] That's to be phased over a series of years. In the meantime, most of the outposts that were still residual from the Korean War, which is where the US forces were located, they've been reduced over the years, but there were still several of them north of Seoul, north of the capital city between Seoul and the demilitarized zone, some 35 miles or so spotted from east coast to west Coast and concentrated in certain corridors where movement can happen from North Korea into South Korea approaching Seoul. That's where the Americans were positioned. Each of those had to also be closed. So somewhere between 1000 people to 2500 4,000 people, including families limited as they were. Now, the further north you go, the more limited these other conveniences of American life. You have less and less of that the further north you go. But that meant relocating all those units, every motor pool, every fuel supply, every dining facility, every barracks. All of that had to be relocated. And this was ongoing in the midst of a period of heightened provocation and then later political turmoil. It was high adventure, to say the least. But as a team, I think we worked through it very, very well with the South Korean government and they're in country. Most of that's left to in-country. Some decisions are left to Washington, but most of it was left to the embassy and the military command there. And I think we worked very, very harmoniously on getting it done.

Amb. Lippert: [00:08:57] I think what this move reflected was decades of the United States and the South Korean militaries and to a lesser extent, the foreign ministries working in close cooperation to resolve political military issues. And it was decades of this muscle memory buildup in the making that led to an extraordinary move that was handled over the course of several years. Still pieces ongoing today, really done with very little, if any, political controversy, very little if any, attention in the West Wing of the White House or the E-Ring of the Pentagon or the seventh floor of the State Department. It was handled in a very businesslike partnership way that again, effectuated an incredibly complicated thing and is still effectuating it and made it look easy. I'll end by saying this. Isn't that sort of what great athletes, great composers, great artists do. They make it look easy. And I think it's a real tribute to what the alliance structure and the men and women on both sides of the Pacific working in that alliance structure bring to this very special relationship.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:10:06] Well, we have agreements called Special Measures Agreements which outline the cost sharing between the two countries for the stationing of U.S. troops. The last one expired in 2019, and negotiations, I understand, broke down over the requests by the Trump administration for South Korea to pay a lot more. A new agreement has just been negotiated under the Biden administration. General, what roughly is the percentage of the cost of stationing U.S. troops on the peninsula that is borne by South Korea? And, Ambassador, what kind of negotiations did you engage in during your time on this burden sharing?

Gen. Brooks: [00:10:44] This was always a challenging question to answer. Because there are things that are very specific compensation and remuneration. Those can be measured and there are things that are in-kind. There are also things that are just their free flow of an alliance relationship where we're neighbors, we live with each other. So we always had a hard time pinning down on exactly what is the amount of burden sharing for those things that can be counted. It generally came in at around 42 to 44%, and there was a desire to increase that to a higher level in some very specific areas. You mentioned the Special Measures Agreement, but That's an agreement that supplements the Status of Forces Agreement. Most of the transactions actually happen under the Status of Forces Agreement, like we execute with any country where we have this kind of a relationship or an alliance structure or significant military presence around the world. The Special Measures Agreement is a supplement to that, and it addresses things like South Korean funded construction, where things are built on behalf of the United States, funded through the South Korean government and displace US military construction dollars. And it's not a one for one displacement. The South Korean labor that provides support to military operations and activities. South Korean provided logistics support to military activities and operations on the Korean Peninsula. Each of these three categories, it's a very flexible agreement that allows fungibility of funds between one category and another, something we don't really get to do with categories of money from the US government that are appropriated and provided to us.

Gen. Brooks: [00:12:19] So it was an agreement we really wanted to protect. We were in negotiation on that during the time that Ambassador Lippert and I were together, and some things we wanted to protect were flexibility. We also wanted to maintain appropriate accountability and increase the levels that were provided in actual one or dollar equivalents. So that was ongoing for several years. It's negotiated by the State Department, not the Defense Department. Defense Department is a member of the team, but it's a Paul Mil team from Washington that comes in. We don't negotiate it locally. It's negotiated by the same team that does that around the world with the context of what it is that the embassy and the command provide them at a given point in time to try to get an increase that was successful. The negotiation that occurred did increase the percentages and the actual dollar amounts, but then a subsequent evaluation of it got skewed by domestic politics in both countries. The request of a five fold increase from the United States resistance to the amount that had to go up not to exceed 1 trillion won from the South Korean side. This created a nationalistic competition at the highest levels where this negotiation preceding did not occur. It occurred inside of ministries, but now it's at the national level as the two presidents were engaged. And that made it very difficult to get it renewed over the last several years. I'm glad they've recently signed the document and had it ratified by the Korean National Assembly just within the last few weeks. 

Amb. Lippert: [00:13:42] Just to add on to General Brooks's very good laydown, I would say first, there's this myth out there that the South Koreans are somehow not good allies or they're somehow free riders. I think you just have to start with that and remind people that there is mandatory conscription for virtually every single military age male in the Republic of Korea. The defense budgets rise from 4 to 8% each year, unlike some of our allies in Europe. The South Korean military purchases US platforms from US manufacturers Lockheed Martin, Boeing at a rate of around 90 to 95%, and they've deployed with us to every single major military conflict. I mean, so these are among the best allies in the world. And I think part of the domestic politics that General Brooks alluded to is all of a sudden they were being accused of free riding, and that's just not true. I think that's point one. Second point on this is that these negotiations are done every five years. And prior to the Trump administration, they were done in a very businesslike manner. They were negotiated by an ambassador at the State Department. The one prior to the Trump administration was Eric John, the former ambassador to Thailand. Eric led the negotiation. It dragged on a little long as these things do, to work out some of the very last details.

Amb. Lippert: [00:14:56] That's a very US Korean kind of negotiation goes down to the wire, but in the end it was resolved at a I would say a mid-level to with a little bit of senior level attention. And it was an increase of, I think somewhere between 6 to 7%. Enter the Trump administration. And this became all of a sudden a leader level issue that again engendered a whole bunch of antibodies that General Brooks outlined. The other thing it did is it distracted. There's limited time, attention and energy of senior policymakers in Seoul and Washington. And too much focus was on a relatively easy to resolve burden sharing agreement or SMA agreement. So my role, to answer your question directly and I'll end here, was minimal in the previous five year agreement. Eric John did most of. The work. There is a little bit of consultation with the embassy. I actually worked on this a little bit when I was the Assistant Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon, and it was in the tracks, as they say, resolved amicably and we moved on and moreover kept the focus, rightfully so, on other, bigger, important issues while we resolve this important, but yet not overly time consuming issue that is the SMA.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:16:13] Well, staying on the bilateral level for one more question here. The U.S. and South Korea do annual military exercises following the Kim Jong-Un and Trump Summit in Singapore in 2018, the scale was reduced. As I understand it, there was an embargo on bringing in new strategic assets onto the peninsula. Vince, can you talk about the deterrent value of the exercises and the effects of the cutback embargo in terms of U.S. leverage on North Korea?

Gen. Brooks: [00:16:44] Well, exercises are really important for several reasons. Let me just try to run through this very quickly in a way that I hope that your listeners will find instructive. There are three main purposes for military exercises. The first is readiness. You want the surgeons to be practiced that brain surgery before the brain surgery date comes up and you're the patient. They have to be practiced as professionals and certainly within an alliance. Alliances have to practice. So readiness is the first reason. The second is deterrence. To the extent that North Korea or any adventurous state, be it Russia or China, given the neighborhood, would deem that the US is in a high state of readiness and today is not the right day for us to try to provoke the militarily and especially that applies to North Korea demonstrating an actual ready capability and a will to use and exposing enough of it that North Korea and others get the message. So deterrence is the second purpose. The third is reassurance, which is often left out, but a very important part of these international exercises. South Korea needs to be reassured that the US is committed to the Mutual Defense Treaty. Japan needs to be assured that the US is committed to its mutual defense treaty and the treaty in Korea. All countries in the region need to realize that the United States does back up its word. So the exercise is survey reassurance purpose as well. When political decisions are made and they are rightfully made.

Gen. Brooks: [00:18:10] So I don't question that every political leader has the right to make choices about how to use the military instrument to achieve their ends. There can be consequences in any one of those three categories. So the decision taken coming out of the Singapore summit in 2018 was to reduce and essentially suspend the most visible of those exercises. They were always command post exercises. They weren't maneuvers in the field like North Korea had complained about years before. They were now simulated exercises that North Korea cannot see. The only thing they see is our press releases when we say an exercise is going to come. And they would literally timed their responses based on the press releases. In the summer of 17, well before the Singapore summit, We decided to test that to see if that's true. How well is North Korea able to appreciate what we're doing or not doing? And we began to be less audible in our exercises. To a degree, deterrence was enhanced by that because North Korea wasn't sure what we were up to at a given point in time. There's also risk that comes with that. The risk of miscalculation reassurance went down a little bit When we did that, readiness went up significantly. So we were actually operating that way. We were operating quietly. We adjusted the timing of the exercises, for example, around the Pyeongchang Olympics. That was the same time that a major exercise was due in the spring of 2018, and we wanted to make room for the diplomatic traction which had just begun.

Gen. Brooks: [00:19:36] It was only about a month or so old at that point, so we moved it away from the Olympics and made it after the Olympics and kept it quiet. North Korea complained somewhat, but didn't go into provocation cycle. In other words, the strategy was successful at lowering the volume and focusing on the right things. The Singapore summit then threw it out altogether. It was essentially touching the on off switch in something that should have been a graphic equaliser. Frankly, it surprised the allies, it surprised the military command, but it was intended to reinforce the traction that was ongoing and we worked through that. The consequences of that are trying to find new ways to maintain the readiness. When you have an external political pressure that is constraining military operations. You're right about the embargo on strategic assets, as North Korea describes them in South Korea, describes them certain bombers, strategic submarines, these sorts of things we stopped bringing in in the spring of 2018 and they've not returned since so that we could get traction in the military relationship. And the last point I'd make here that then opened the door to a comprehensive military agreement between North Korea and South Korea, endorsed by the United Nations command that. Lowered military tension along the demilitarized zone. So all of this was intended to create momentum using military instrumentalities for diplomatic traction, which we saw during the season of summitry, until things fell apart in Hanoi.

Amb. Lippert: [00:21:00] As a personal view, I'm not a big fan of putting military exercises, putting military assets on the table in diplomatic negotiations. I think that military exercises, military needs should be driven by the security situation and obviously the resource constraints presented by the governments in question. And in this case, we have an example that people often forget about. We had a big exercise in Korea called Team Spirit. It was comprehensive. It was big. Eventually that went away and it's made no real discernible impact on the diplomatic efforts or political efforts in the region. So my general rule of thumb coming in as a diplomat is we need exercises, we need military readiness to help handle the security situation effectively. And when the security situation changes, we need to take a look at that. Hopefully, the diplomatic efforts will help change the security situation that will lead to corresponding military posture adjustments that could be made down the road. But I don't like the sequencing of putting things on the table, hoping for a good diplomatic outcome. And then if you don't get the outcome, generally speaking, the things that were tabled become part of the negotiations or pocketed going forward. 

Amb. McCarthy: [00:22:23] You both have extensive backgrounds in strategic communications. Ambassador, you engaged in both hard and soft messaging, as I call it. You swam with the Korean triathlon athletes, took an F-16 ride over the country, were and are an avid supporter of Korean baseball. I'd like you to comment each on the use of strategic communications to advance our foreign policy agenda.

Amb. Lippert: [00:22:51] What I would say is, first, I think it was the tightest wetsuit I had ever worn in my life. I was walking out, had it half zipped up and zipped up around the chest, and I asked the friend with me or the embassy person, is this going to fit me? And the answer back was, What's the biggest one we could find? That's not really a yes. So anyway, these things are so critically important. I think they're often viewed as fun entertainment, a little bit trivial, and I think that really misses the mark. I think that these are these people to people moments, especially in democracies, are what builds the foundation that is lasting. Governments, ambassadors, presidents all come and go. People to people is resilient. The second point is, if the people the people relationship is strong and there is popular support for the policies or the bilateral relationship, it gives those working in the diplomatic, intelligence, military spaces more creativity in terms of risk taking, in terms of undertaking complicated bilateral policies together. It really does open up the space, as they would say. Most people don't spend a lot of time crawling around the halls of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the Ministry of Defence, but they do spend a lot of time at baseball games or they do spend a lot of time near the Han River, or they do spend time in the Busan Harbor, which I water skied in. All of that together I think sets a tone that it's not just about policymaking, it's not just about these set of foreign policy or military interests that are two countries have a shared destiny, that our two countries have a shared relationship. I think the more you can resonate that, the more people you bring in, the better you build and the better off the relationship and policies are going forward.

Gen. Brooks: [00:24:35] And this is something that we try to always make sure we were tightly coordinated on. So Ambassador Lippert was skillful, as you just described, in really making the human connection with the South Korean population. And it created buoyancy for us and the other things we went through. He talked about that as an example. It's buoyancy that comes from that. When you do have to deliver a hard message either to within the alliance or outside, whether it's trying to send a message of resolve to North Korea after a missile or a nuclear test. And we had several of those hard communication moments. We had to also balance it. I remember the 4th of July in I guess was 2016, instead of doing it from the base where we had historically done it, Ambassador Lippert said, let's do it down on the Han River in a place where more people can see it and more can interact with us, more would have access to it. And the weather didn't help us very much that day, but it was quite a party. These things matter and the military needs to be, in my view, needs to be present in that. Not everyone agrees with me on this. Some of my colleagues believe that it's more important to just keep the military very narrowly focused.

Gen. Brooks: [00:25:40] I happen to believe that military is part of the fabric of the American connection to its international engagements. Needs to be part of all facets of the engagement. Sometimes simple things went a long way. I was never as proficient as Mark Lippert in Korean. He's pretty amazing. And that still talks to his kids in Korean. They're named Korean. They're born in Korea. He has a very deep connection. I still haven't figured out how he learned the language as quickly as he did. My proficiency was much less than that. But I did learn the Korean national anthem and got caught in the act singing it. And suddenly that was my connection with the South Korean population. Even to this day, people talk about that. I thought there was such a simple thing and I wasn't doing it for strategic communications, but it had that effect nevertheless. So what we say and what we do is always being watched for both the ambassador and the general wherever we are. And we can create impacts if we're thoughtful about what it is we do and what it is we say. And I think that was one of the things we did very, very well as a team.

Amb. Lippert: [00:26:40] I think there's sort of this misnomer that General Brooks touched on, that the military should be cordoned off or not engage in this type of thing. The US military polled among the most popular parts of the alliance. So having the eighth Army Band play at International Day at the Jamsil Baseball Stadium on the dugout and be dancing with the South Korean fans and mixing it into that sphere, you know, it was just a moment where you saw these different elements American baseball, Koreans, American military, all together. And again, the military in South Korea is quite popular. And to make sure that they are linked in with the public diplomacy efforts is incredibly important.

Gen. Brooks: [00:27:27] I want to add one additional dimension that's unique to Korea and perhaps in one or two other places around the world where we have a multinational command on top of an alliance command. So we had United Nations command there, as well as the Republic of Korea, US Combined Forces Command and US Forces Korea. I won't go into the full explanation of all of those at this point, but I would say that the UN command is fundamentally about connecting the international community militarily to the situation on the Korean Peninsula. And we held a monthly meeting with the ambassadors of the original sending states. Ambassador Lippert participated in most of those, and the ambassadors themselves are the ones who came, and it gave the UN commander a chance to communicate how we were thinking about the situation in Korea. And that became a very important part of our communication effort to the capitals around the world that they represented.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:28:17] That's a very important point. Thank you for adding that. Well, to wrap up, I want to ask one last question. You retired from your careers, but you didn't retire from leadership using your words. General Brooks, you both also continue to collaborate to this day, including in the great series, the Capital Cable at CSIS. As you continue to lead, what are the lessons you would like to impart about the cooperation partnership between our military leaders and our diplomatic leaders?

Gen. Brooks: [00:28:48] First, get to know each other. And that should not be saved to the point at which you're now a general or an ambassador. It should be much earlier than that. Contact needs to be early and often throughout the careers of the participants who ultimately rise to these higher levels. It shouldn't be a first time encounter. The second point is help one another, realizing that we're on the same team. We may play different positions on the field, but we are on the same team. And when there's an adversarial relationship between an embassy and a military command, it is always bad news for the United States. So help one another leveraging. And then finally, if you can get to the advanced level beyond just mere cooperation and teamwork, it's deliberately and strategically applied the instruments that each can bring to bear. And that's how whole of government actions occur. I mean, as much as we would like for it all to be solved in Washington, it is most practically solved where humans are in contact with one another on the ground in a country team, in a military command, inside of an alliance, etc.. This should be a very deliberate process that is not waiting for guidance and instruction from Washington, but using guidance and instruction from Washington to commit then to action that enables what it is in Washington and the alliance capital in this case would need. So those are the key things I'd say people need to take away, do it. Well, our nation's counting on it.

Amb. Lippert: [00:30:11] I mean, terrific points. I would simply add a few I would say friendly amendments to this. The underlying corpus here was really, really well done. I would say a curiosity, openness and being nice goes a long way with your colleagues, either at the State Department or the military. I mean, I had the luxury of being a reservist in uniform for about three years on active duty. So I had a little bit of understanding about the culture of the Department of Defense and the uniformed military going in, but just being open and receptive to different ideas of how the cultures work is really important. The second thing I would say is for leaders create that environment. It's critical that people see the leaders of embassies or commands or the Pentagon in the State Department working collaboratively, collectively and creatively to try to facilitate that environment. And then the final two points, I would say is recognize that good ideas come from all different places. Right? And a lot of good ideas don't come from necessarily inside the government, inside the embassy, inside the military command. So make sure that as you're working together inside the government, you're not closing yourself off to really good ideas that otherwise would have to permeate some impregnable bubble of the United States government. And finally, I think that as leaders and I was also someone who served in the rank and file as well, I think it's just so important to take risks, to try to push the envelope to be creative. I think those are critically important skill sets that often don't get enough recognition reward in the US. So I'll leave you with the line from Deputy Secretary Armitage, who served in both sides: always assume a 25% more authority than you actually have and leave it at that.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:31:58] He gave the same advice to us at the State Department. I remember. Well, gentlemen, thank you so much. This has been a great interview. I really appreciate you joining the general and the ambassador in our endeavor to explain our work overseas and how important it is that the partnership be strong between our military leaders and our diplomatic leaders. So thank you very much.

Amb. Lippert: [00:32:22] Thank you.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:32:23] This has been a new episode in the series The General and The Ambassador, A Conversation. Thank you for listening. Our series is a production of the American Academy of Diplomacy in partnership with UNC Global at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. You can find our podcasts on all major podcast sites and on our website. General.Ambassador.Podcast.org. Do follow us on Twitter and Facebook. And we welcome all input and suggestions. You can mail us directly at General.Ambassador.podcast@gmail.com. Thank you for listening.