North Korea's missile testing blunder

The North Korean ICBM testing program appears to have begun before the March 9 presidential election with elements of the launch vehicle being tested before the election. Those launches were on Feb 25 and Mar 5 at the height of the election campaign in South Korea. The launches followed a a very active series of short range missile tests. In effect, the missile testing program bolstered the hardliner ( 강경파 ) viewpoint in South Korea, which Yoon Seok-yeol represents; the timing of the tests was very poorly considered by North Korea because it probably played a role in Yoon's razor thin election victory. Therefore, the increased missile launches pushed South Korea in the direction of the US-Japan alignment. Yoon is pro-Japan ( 친일파 親日派 ); his father as a professional academic was patronized by Japan. Yoon wants more THAAD missile batteries deployed and participation in the Quad, etc. Yoon rejects the Moon Jae-in "three no's policy" adopted after the first THAAD battery was deployed to repair relations with China. Yoon's proposed policies will provoke a breach in South Korean-Chinese relations and further prolong deadlocked relations with North Korea. This development is ideal from the neo-con perspective in the US.

North Korea's foreign policy analysts failed miserably. China and Russia should have discouraged Kim Jong-un from these missile tests or at least convince him to postpone them until after March 9. A change in South Korea's alignment in northeast Asia is now underway. It is deleterious from the point of view of those in South Korea who sought a step by step trust building approach to negotiations with North Korea rather than the "all or nothing" or "one bundle" or Libyan approach promoted by neo-cons dominating US foreign policy. The latter approach has no chance of success and only encourages greater instability in east Asia. What is lost in most analysis of North-South relations is the natural economic compatibility of the two portions of the Korean nation. The problem isn't just about nuclear weapons. Opening up limited social, cultural, and commercial exchanges between the two Korean states would have tangible diplomatic and security advantages. Unfortunately, South Korea is now back in "lock step," with the US, in a quasi-protectorate posture, where it will play little more than than the role of a US proxy.