New International Order Unfolding -- Multi-Military Alliance

[허만]

New International Order Unfolding--Multi-Military Alliance

Professor Emeritus Mane Heo/Former President of the Korean Society of Contemporary European Studies

(Ugraded version)

New international order is unfolding with US-Japan’s enhanced cooperation. This change in international order is an opportunity for sustainable peace order on the one hand and a great challenge to adversaries on the other.

As to the sustainable peace order, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida had a summit with US President Joe Biden on April 10 in Washington. The summit appears to have opened a new age that could end the 79-long protection for Japan by the US and instead push for projection of power mainly aimed at achieving US strategic purposes.  A high-ranking official of the US said that Biden wants to create a global partner of the US through the summit. The US-Japan’s relations are thus expected to develop hereafter into an enhanced level of cooperation. Both leaders agreed to “ending  the old type of alliance and creating a new alliance”, said he. He stressed that both countries would engage themselves together in conflicts that will be connected with Europe, the Middle East, and the Indo-Pacific region.

The sustainable peace order results mainly from the long-tern maintenance of democracy around the world. The former is basically supported by the vitality of the latter and by its continuing functioning. It cannot continue to work merely through containment, appeasement or balance of power; containment will not erect a permanent wall for national security; appeasement will not reach a policy of compromise capable of thwarting imperialistic attacks; balance of power would be prone to be limited to keep status quo which could barely maintain short-term and vulnerable peace. The world hopes that the Biden-Kishida declaration would serve for this type of peace.  Supported first by smart power rather than by hard power only, the declaration truly needs, from a geopolitical consideration,  to strengthen free democratic countries by regularly operating AUKUS which the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, and Canada join as regular members. This type of alliance must aim, among other things, to further enhance the structure for peace and security. To this end, South Korea needs to join the trilateral security body. An enhanced quadruple security body is sure to unite democratic countries in the region.    

As for the projection of power, the summit may further strengthen military alliance that could crash into adversaries such as China, Russia, and North Korea. Both leaders agreed that they would call on Japan to join soon AUKU, a trilateral security partnership in the Indo-Pacific region. The summit aimed to, through Japanese-Philippines joint cooperation, check China to advance toward the wider ocean over the South China Sea.  China has long dreamt to reach out in deep to the Pacific Ocean for its extended maritime security.  The country has continued to increase its naval forces by constructing aircraft carriers and manufacturing ultra-modernized missiles.

Kishida has ambitions that Japan wants to play positive role to seek solutions for the Indo-Pacific region. He has long anticipated developing his country into a normal one that would permit to go to war in the near future. His new ambitions may crash into China, Russia, and North Korea, resulting in undesirable conflicts. US-Japan’s enhanced military cooperation will surely open a new page, ending the post-cold war order. As a result, Japan today seems to be very happy as it can now abandon its total defense policy. The change in security order may well be called a second cold war that is not, in some aspects, akin to the first Cold War deeply infected with ideological differences.  

When it comes to the Korean Peninsula, it could be either favorable to the peace on the peninsula or do harm to it. Abandoning the Peace Constitution of Japan will permit the country to use arms and to join war with the US. This change in military power in particular signs that Japan will potentially show, in time of emergence, a threatening attitude toward South Korea. Many Korean intellectuals still worry if the Camp David Agreement concluded last year will go hand in hand with the new agreement of the US,  Japan, and Philippines concluded on April 11. Especially the US and Japan should not forget that South Korea is now faced with nuclear weapons and missile-oriented North Korea and that the unbeliverably militarized Pyongyang regime has been challenging a series of UN resolutions imposed on it.  North Korea’s hypersonic missile attacks are real and massively destructive to all South Koreans. The Camp David Agreement is the trilateral coalition body that shares the common values such as freedom, peace, human rights, and global cooperation. But under the abrupt changes in internatiinal security, South Koreans need to watch if the new two agreements aim to focus on strengthening only trilateral relations in the Indo-Pacific region or not.  South Korea truly needs to join soon AUKUS to keep pace with changes in military realignment and military power. The trilateral agreement is in dire need to pay high attention to the highly militarized North Korea’s barbaric provocations.

It should be remembered that General Security of Military Information Agreement  (GSOMIA) did not work  for two years, during the Moon Jae-In Government, due to policy differences between Seoul and Tokyo over the issues of export restrictions and wartime labor, in the end causing difficult situation capable of leading to North Korean continuing provocations. In short, the trilateral agreement, among other things, should play sustainable stronger-ever deterrence to China, Russia, North Korea, and the Indo-Pacific region now slowly emerging. We all live in an age of multi-military alliances. This age is certainly war and alliance-oriented one.