Ambassador Speeches

Challenges and Visions of the ROK-U.S. Alliance

By Ambassador Thomas C. Hubbard
To the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security

February 11, 2003

Ambassador Shin and distinguished guests:

Thank you for the honor of addressing such a distinguished audience. I congratulate you on organizing a series of seminars to commemorate the 50th anniversary of our alliance.

Half a century is a long time in one person's life, but a short time in the life of a nation, particularly one such as Korea, which has a history stretching back thousands of years. As we celebrate this important anniversary, I would like to briefly look back fifty years, to the armistice that suspended, but did not formally end, the terrible three-year armed conflict.

During those three years, 34,000 young Americans were killed, 80,000 wounded, and 8200 were unaccounted for. Your country paid an even higher price. 138,000 South Korean soldiers were killed, 450,000 wounded, and 19,000 are still missing. Civilian deaths were many times higher. All told, several million people on both sides of the battle lines died. Much of the peninsula lay in ruins.

Some of you experienced the horror of this time first hand. All of you have heard about it. None of us want to see the grim specter of war descend on this free and prosperous land again. This has been the first challenge of our alliance -- to guarantee the safety and security of your country and prevent war. Working together, we have succeeded. The deterrence provided by our combined forces has been the shield behind which Korea has flourished, both economically and politically.

Through hard work, diligence, and determination, the Korean people have achieved an almost miraculous transformation of their country in the last 50 years. Korea raced through stages of economic development in mere decades that had taken centuries in Europe and the United States. Your country now stands among the most economically developed countries in the world.

Korea has also evolved into a vibrant democracy, as we were powerfully reminded recently by the presidential election of
December 19. The United States looks forward to working closely with Korea's next President, a young dynamic leader whose election symbolizes the powerful new forces that are taking Korea into this new century.

As the people in the south have seen their country become wealthier and their own living standards improve year by year, the situation in the north has been the reverse. Except for a privileged minority, the people of North Korea are cold and hungry. Many suffer from illnesses caused by poor nutrition and lack of clean water. The economy in North Korea has all but ceased to provide the people of that unfortunate land with the essential things needed for a civilized existence.

Tragically, none of this has deterred the North's leadership from engaging in an astonishingly distorted allocation of the North's limited resources as the DPRK continues to pour money into the development of weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems. As a result, we face a new challenge from the North. With its programs to develop nuclear weapons and their means of delivery, North Korea represents a threat not only to the Korean people and the security of the region, but also to the international community and to the system that has been painstakingly developed to limit the spread of nuclear weapons in the world.

This is not simply a matter to be resolved between North Korea and the U.S., as the DPRK would like the world to believe. Many nations, including your own, as well as Japan, China, and Russia, are directly concerned, and share the view that the Korean Peninsula must remain free of nuclear weapons.

The Board of Governors of the IAEA, tasked with overseeing enforcement of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, will meet soon, and we expect it to relay its concerns about North Korea to the United Nations Security Council. The world community must continue to insist, clearly and firmly, that North Korea must not disregard its international obligations.

The U.S. is prepared to talk with Pyongyang about how it can fulfill its international obligations to abandon and dismantle its nuclear weapons programs in a manner that is both verifiable and irreversible. However, yielding to blackmail is not a course we intend to follow. This means we will not, under any circumstances, offer rewards to North Korea for complying with its existing obligations.

Our firm objective is to resolve this problem peacefully, through diplomacy. Despite our deep concerns about the very real threat that Pyongyang poses, the United States has made clear that we harbor no aggressive intent toward North Korea, and we have no intention of invading North Korea. We are prepared to convey this position to North Korea in a clear and unmistakable fashion.

If North Korea comes into full compliance with its international commitments and obligations, we are prepared to transform our relationship with North Korea. As a matter of fact, the U.S., in consultation with your country and Japan, was prepared last summer to pursue a new approach with Pyongyang, a bold approach that would have moved toward normal ties with the DPRK, and would have included political and economic measures to help the long-suffering North Korean people. Our ability to pursue such an approach was thwarted by the disturbing revelations that North Korea had been pursuing a surreptitious nuclear weapons development program for several years.

Because we are aware that Korea is the country that stands to lose the most should war again break out on the Peninsula, we attach the utmost importance to cooperation between our two countries. As we work toward a peaceful solution of issues facing the Peninsula, the United States continues to support the Republic of Korea's efforts to engage North Korea. Our military alliance, and the a strong deterrent it provides against aggression, provides a strong and supportive foundation on which the structure of engagement has been built. President-elect Roh has stated that he intends to pursue engagement and dialogue with Pyongyang just as he has reaffirmed his commitment to the alliance. In his pursuit of both engagement and a strong partnership with the U.S., he will have my country's strong support.

As I said earlier, the first challenge for our alliance is to jointly maintain the peace and stability that have enabled Korea to develop and prosper. What, then, is the next challenge for our alliance? I think it is for your country and mine to recognize that times and circumstances have changed, to adapt ourselves to these changes, and to work toward creating a "partnership of true equals."

I hesitate to compare relations between states to those between people, but I think in some respects our recent problems are similar to those encountered by married couples. One of the most common reasons married couples have disputes is a lack of communication. "He never listens to me" and "All she does is complain" are two of the phrases that marriage counselors hear most often. Talking is a way both to convey factual information and to share emotions and feelings. People are often hurt when a close friend or partner appears to ignore their feelings or emotions.

I, personally, think Americans might to better around the world if they spent less time talking and more time listening. Unfortunately, people keep asking me to speak -- but I fully intend to listen more carefully in the future. Let me just say that we believe the U.S. military presence in the Republic of Korea to be vital part of our alliance. Because of that we sometimes assume that the importance of our forces is so self-evident that it does not need public explanation. There are always possible sources of friction when one country is hosting the military forces of another country. This was true of our British allies during the Second World War, when their own men were away fighting overseas and the British Isles filled up with young Americans preparing to land in Normandy.

In a small and densely populated country like Korea, accidents involving our military happen from time to time. Most recently we immediately apologized for the crash of one of our airplanes, which injured four people, and we committed ourselves to pay all claims for damages according to our bilateral agreements.

Last June, two young girls lost their precious lives during a military training exercise. The U.S. immediately accepted responsibility, and President Bush extended his deep apology to President Kim and to the Korean people. We have taken steps to ensure such a tragic accident does not happen again, and our two governments are working to improve implementation of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) in a number of areas.

There has been a great deal of debate over SOFA recently, and many Koreans feel SOFA somehow symbolizes an "unfair" relationship between our two countries. Most Koreans may not know much about the details or philosophy of SOFAs but considered the fact that the driver and commander of the vehicle that killed the two young girls last June were both acquitted, and both left Korea, was proof in itself that the SOFA is "unfair." Our best efforts to explain that we carried out a fair and open trial in accordance with U.S. military procedures and that this would have been handled the same way in Germany, Japan, or elsewehere seemed powerless to change this perception.

As a matter of fact, the SOFA between the U.S. and Korea is identical in all important respects to those that the U.S. has with 90 other countries, and is based on international law. Korean armed forces stationed in Afghanistan operate under a SOFA under which any problem, including a traffic accident, is handled strictly through Korean military channels.

This is not the same relationship we had 50 years ago. Korean soldiers carried American M-1 rifles, rode in American Jeeps and trucks, communicated on American radios, and used American-made armor and artillery. In the years since then, Korea has begun to produce many of its own weapons and other types of equipment. In this and many other ways, the capabilities of the Korean military have changed over the years, and the balance in military aspects of the relationship has changed. Our modernized forces move faster, shoot faster and more accurately, and in general use more sophisticated equipment and tactics than the men who fought 50 years ago.

Our two defense ministers recently agreed to conduct a joint study of the future of the alliance. This study will consider various developments and will work toward making the adjustments and taking the steps needed to ensure that our partnership responds to the changed circumstances of the 21st century, and to the increased sophistication and capabilities of our respective militaries. At the same time, our Land Partnership Plan will return to the Korean government nearly half of the land our bases now occupy. Our military will continue to seek ways to minimize the impact of its presence on your country and the Korean people.

As I noted, the tragic accident of last June understandably caused an emotional response. But many people appeared to go beyond that to question whether American forces are even necessary in Korea at all. I must say that, as an American, I was hurt when I saw pictures of our flag being torn to bits and burned, and when I saw signs calling the soldiers involved in the tragic accident of last June "murderers."

I know that these activities do not reflect the will of the majority in Korea. Most Koreans realize that our alliance is vital to the continued prosperity and safety of Korea. The United States understands and appreciates this. It is our joint task to work toward making our alliance responsive to changing times. As we do so, and as we make needed adjustments, several things will not change, including the commitment of my country to defend the Republic of Korea, and the continued presence of U.S. forces in the ROK to fulfill this commitment.

Our alliance goes beyond the problems of this Peninsula. Our forces here are part of a network of alliance relationships that ensure peace and security throughout the region, and your generous provision of military and economic support has been of great assistance in the fight in Afghanistan and elsewhere. You supported us during the Gulf War more than a decade ago, and we may soon face a new conflict in Iraq. But our partnership goes beyond our military alliance, of course. We are important trading partners, and we invest in each other's economies. Our two countries conducted trade worth $60 billion last year. One vision I have for our future is a time when we have both opened up all our markets to each other's products.

We have personal ties. The first Korean immigrants landed in Hawaii a century ago. In the past hundred years, that first handful has swelled to over a million. Korean-Americans are well known for their close sense of family, for their zeal for education and self-improvement, and for their diligence. In addition to the many Korean-Americans who have contributed to our multi-cultural society, there are thousands of Koreans studying in the United States. A great number of professors at universities in Korea have studied at American universities.

As would be expected from people with such close ties, we visit each other a lot. For example, in 2001, 750,000 Koreans traveled to the United States, and 500,000 Americans came to visit Korea.

Korea will soon welcome its first President elected in the 21st century. In this time of transition, I see a good opportunity for us to examine ourselves and our partnership, to renew our commitment to maintaining the alliance that has served us both so well, while acknowledging that times have changed, and that we must make change our friend. We need to take stock of what each of our countries expects of the other, and what each side can and should do to make our alliance truly a partnership of equals.

Let us communicate more openly. Let us move forward together in a productive relationship that preserves the best of the values we share, and is also open to new ways to meet new challenges. Thank you.