{"id":1165,"date":"2010-05-13T15:37:44","date_gmt":"2010-05-13T19:37:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.harvardnsj.com\/?p=1165"},"modified":"2014-11-14T14:30:32","modified_gmt":"2014-11-14T19:30:32","slug":"managing-north-korea-the-need-for-coordination-between-washington-and-seoul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/2010\/05\/managing-north-korea-the-need-for-coordination-between-washington-and-seoul\/","title":{"rendered":"Managing North Korea: The Need for Coordination between Washington and Seoul"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Richard Fontaine and Micah Springut<\/strong><a href=\"#_ftn*\">*<\/a> &#8211;<\/p>\n<p>As the hundreds of American and South Korean officials involved in  formulating and executing policy towards the Democratic People&#8217;s Republic of Korea over the years will attest, theirs is a difficult  endeavor.\u00a0 Pyongyang\u2019s actions and intentions are notoriously  inscrutable, and the North\u2019s alternating pattern of threats, bluster,  and occasional concessions are as treacherous a path to navigate as  exists in international relations.\u00a0 The threat posed by Pyongyang\u2019s  nuclear program, combined with its proliferation of nuclear and missile  technologies, naturally represents a major challenge to the current  American and South Korean administrations.\u00a0 The story of the North\u2019s  on-again, off-again engagement with multilateral nuclear talks  consistently makes waves in the global press.\u00a0 While diplomats seek to  steer the peninsula towards greater stability, both nations actively  prepare \u2013 often beyond the headlines \u2013 for possible military conflict  with the DRPK and to respond to a potential North Korean collapse.<\/p>\n<p>Given the stakes, coordination between Washington and Seoul on North  Korea policy is of singular importance.\u00a0 On the diplomatic front, the  United States and the Republic of Korea are critical players in efforts  to reduce the threat from the DPRK.\u00a0 While progress in diplomacy  requires the support of other nations in the region, there is little  chance of success if it does not begin with coordination between the  U.S. and the ROK.<\/p>\n<p>Coordinating plans and policies for  contingencies north of the demilitarized zone is another core activity  of the U.S.-ROK alliance.\u00a0 In the event of conflict or upheaval on the  peninsula, it will fall to the ROK and the United States to respond and  play the leading role.\u00a0 Yet obstacles to better collaboration remain.\u00a0  Political sensitivities often hamper preparations for the potential  collapse of the DPRK.\u00a0 In addition, planned changes in the structure of  U.S.-ROK military integration, revolving around the scheduled 2012  transfer of wartime operational control (OPCON) to the ROK, threaten to  undermine military coordination efforts at a time when they should be  expanded.<\/p>\n<p>This article examines three critical elements  of coordination between the U.S. and ROK: diplomacy towards the DPRK,  management of the military component of the alliance, and efforts to  meet the challenge of a potential North Korean collapse.\u00a0 After  explaining the stakes involved and the need for enhanced coordination in  each area, the article offers recommendations for policymakers to  leverage coordination to achieve a more secure Korean Peninsula and a  more resilient U.S.-ROK alliance.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/82\/2010\/05\/Book-Chapter_Fontaine-Springut_US-ROK.pdf\">Click here for the full PDF article<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>An earlier version of this article was published in <\/em>The U.S.-ROK  Alliance in the 21<sup>st<\/sup> Century (Jung-Ho Bae &amp; Abraham  Denmark eds., 2009)<em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<hr size=\"1\" \/><a name=\"_ftn*\">*<\/a>Richard Fontaine is a Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security and previously served as foreign policy advisor to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).\u00a0 Micah Springut is an analyst at CENTRA Technology, Inc., a consulting firm in Arlington, Virginia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Richard Fontaine and Micah Springut* &#8211; As the hundreds of American and South Korean officials involved in formulating and executing policy towards the Democratic People&#8217;s Republic of Korea over the years will attest, theirs is a difficult endeavor.\u00a0 Pyongyang\u2019s actions and intentions are notoriously inscrutable, and the North\u2019s alternating pattern of threats, bluster, and occasional concessions are as treacherous a path to navigate as exists in international relations.\u00a0 The threat posed by Pyongyang\u2019s nuclear program, combined with its proliferation of nuclear and missile technologies, naturally represents a major challenge to the current American and South Korean administrations.\u00a0 The story [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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