‘Forged in Blood’: US, South Korea Draw Closer in Face of North’s Nuclear Threats

U.S. Army soldiers wait to board their CH-47 Chinook helicopter during a joint military drill between South Korea and the United States at Rodriguez Live Fire Complex in Pocheon, South Korea, on March 19, 2023. (Ahn Young-joon/AP Photo)

The U.S. bond with South Korea is stronger than ever at a time of new missile tests from North Korea, according to a South Korean diplomat.

The 70-year alliance between the two nations is deepening across every domain, according to Choon-goo Kim, charge d'affaires for the South Korean Embassy in the United States.

“The friendship between Korea and the United States goes back 140-plus years,” Kim said at an April 14 discussion at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank.

“We have been allies half of the time of our friendship. Forged in blood, our alliance has been the foundation of our current prosperity.”

Kim’s comments come as the two powers commemorate the 70th year of their alliance, which dates to the end of the United States’ direct involvement in the Korean War.

That war, fought between the U.S.-backed democratic south and the Soviet-backed communist north, never actually ended but resulted instead in an armistice that continues to this day.

The comments also follow North Korea’s test of a nuclear-capable solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile earlier in the week, the first such test in the nation’s long-running nuclear program.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un vowed that the test would create a “security crisis” for the regime’s enemies, causing them to “suffer in endless fear.”

To the contrary, however, Choon-goo Kim said the United States and South Korea would only strengthen their military cooperation in response.

“In the face of the evolving threat posed by North Korea, our alliance stands firm, always demonstrating strength and resolve,” he said.

“In response to North Korea’s threats, we will enhance and strengthen our extended [nuclear] deterrence, as well as reaffirm our shared goal of the denuclearization of North Korea.”

US–South Korea Alliance ‘Ironclad’

Despite the growing closeness between the United States and South Korea, North Korea’s commitment to developing and deploying nuclear weapons remains a critical problem, said Jung Pak, the State Department’s deputy assistant secretary for multilateral affairs.

Kim Jong Un is seeking to develop nuclear weapons not only at the expense of global stability but also to his own people’s detriment, she said.

“During the 10 years Kim Jong Un has been in power, his weapon systems have become much more sophisticated, diverse, and dangerous,” Pak said.

“It seems he has decided what is best for his people and perhaps for himself is the pursuit of nuclear weapons.”

To that end, Pak said North Korea appeared to have firmly sided with the burgeoning alliance between communist China and Vladimir Putin’s Russia in recent years. The problem exacerbated by North Korea’s ongoing lockdown, in place since the beginning of COVID-19, has created a persistent challenge to any form of transparency or negotiation internationally.

“Negotiation and dialogue is really the only way that we’re going to resolve this [nuclear] issue,” Pak said.

“We would encourage the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] to come to negotiations ... but it’s really up to Kim Jong Un and [North Korea] to decide when and how they’re going to open up their borders.”

Regarding the continued nuclear menace to South Korea, Pak said the alliance between South Korea and the United States, whose nuclear arsenal it depends on for its own defense, remained “unwavering” and “ironclad.”

Lines Drawn for a New Cold War

Katharine Moon, a visiting professor of government at Harvard University, agreed with Pak’s assessment, saying that “geopolitical shifts” created by China and Russia have brought North Korea closer to their revanchist ambitions.

North Korea’s shift to “a closer alignment with China and Russia” and its continued “parroting” of Russian and Chinese disinformation is a “signal” of the authoritarian future that Kim Jong Un is betting on, she said.

The result is a more destabilized world in which the regions of the earth were being forced into discrete power blocks much as they had been during the first Cold War, according to Moon.

“Things are not good right now,” she said.

“These lines are getting drawn, and it makes for a much more precarious, uncertain environment in which to act.”

Global Security Player

In response to the growing threat from North Korea and a looming cold war, South Korean leadership is ready to exert itself as global power not only in economics but security as well, according to Brookings Senior Fellow Andrew Yeo.

“The government has made very clear that it wants to be a part of this network of partners that want to develop the rules-based international order,” Yeo said.

“South Korea is prepared to go to the next step and have others think of it as a real global player ... a security player.”

Yeo told The Epoch Times that this new development could even lead to the further acceleration of the rapprochement between South Korea and Japan, whose ties have been strained to various degrees since the early 20th century.

That warming relationship could even evolve into increased security cooperation, both bilaterally and trilaterally with the United States.

“In some ways, Japan and South Korea both buy weapons and their weapons platforms are coming from the U.S., so it wouldn’t be too difficult to improve interoperability,” Yeo said.

“If they were to continue to conduct more joint exercises I think ... that would increase the interoperability among their militaries. ... That would be the prudent thing to do, and I’m certain that the U.S. would be pleased to see great joint operability between the three militaries for trilateral cooperation.”

To that end, Yeo said South Korea was looking to increase its cooperation with international partners in numerous fields vital to regional and global security, including industrial defense cooperation, artificial intelligence innovation, space technologies, and broader issues of “global governance.”

As such, Yeo said, the United States and South Korea’s relationship was at a historic high point, and future collaboration would likely yield boons for both sides.

“Overall, the alliance is on solid footing,” he said.

“It’s in great shape.”