SCENESETTER FOR THE 40TH US-ROK SECURITY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SEOUL 002034

SIPDIS

FROM AMBASSADOR STEPHENS TO SECRETARY GATES

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/14/2018
TAGS: MARR PREL PGOV PINS KS KN JA
SUBJECT: SCENESETTER FOR THE 40TH US-ROK SECURITY
CONSULTATIVE MEETING (SCM)

Classified By: AMBASSADOR KATHLEEN STEPHENS, REASONS 1.4 (b/d)

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SUMMARY
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1. (C) Since your June visit to Seoul, the South Korean
domestic political scene has largely returned to normal.
President Lee has escaped from the morass that was the beef
controversy, but still has much work to do before his
government regains the trust and support of the Korean
public. The shock of last summer's anti-government/anti-U.S.
beef protests was so severely felt, however, that while we
have a pro-U.S. government to work with in Seoul it is one
that is very sensitive to being seen as doing Washington's
bidding. ROK negotiators have therefore been particularly
prickly in their approach to concluding the next Special
Measures Agreement (SMA) and completing this year's USFK camp
returns. The global economic downturn is a complication that
has given the Koreans an argument to make against increasing
their Alliance burden sharing contribution at this time. At
the same time, however, ROK President Lee Myung-bak has
pledged to strengthen the Alliance, and uses a new label - a
"21st Century Strategic Alliance." You can assure Minister
of National Defense (MND) Lee Sang-hee that his president's
support for the Alliance is well-placed, for regardless of
the outcome of our own general election, the USG government
is sure to continue to honor its enduring commitment to the
defense of Korea. At the same time, you should ask him, now
that LMB's political situation is improving, what steps his
government plans to take to make good on President Lee's vow
to strengthen and upgrade the Alliance.


2. (C) In addition to addressing the impasse over SMA and
camp returns, it is perhaps most important to urge MND to
speed implementation of our key Alliance Transformation
agreements: 1) relocation of USFK from Yongsan; 2)
consolidation of other U.S. bases on the peninsula; and 3)
the transfer of wartime operational control (OPCON) to the
ROK military. When Lee raises ROK domestic political woes,
you can counter by pointing out the strength of the Alliance
depends upon the depth of our shared national interests, not
on our respective domestic political problems. You can point
to the Alliance's vital contributions to the defense of the
Korean Peninsula, its enhancement of regional stability and
prosperity. You might also want to encourage Minister Lee to
improve mil-to-mil relations with Japan, increase the ROK
commitment to PSI, dispatch a naval vessel to deter pirates
off the East Coast of Africa, and increase South Korea's
contribution to stabilization efforts in Afghanistan. END
SUMMARY

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IMPROVED POLITICAL SITUATION
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(U) Mr. Secretary,


3. (C) When you last visited Seoul for the USFK change of
command ceremony in June, you learned first-hand of the large
anti-government/anti-U.S. beef protests then taking place
nightly in the streets of Seoul. Activists and leftist
politicians tried to pressure President Lee Myung-bak (LMB)
to re-negotiate the beef deal he signed in April, but Lee
held firm, explaining to the public that it would undermine
Korea's credibility and our bilateral alliance. As a result
of that political unrest, the President's summit meeting in
Seoul with Lee was delayed from July to August. When it did
take place on August 6, the Blue House had no stomach left
for announcing that it had made any new commitments to the
United States, and thus asked the White House for a delay in
defining President Lee's call for the upgrading of the
U.S.-ROK security partnership to "21ST Century Strategic
Alliance."


4. (C) Since summer, the protests have ceased and the Korean
domestic political situation has stabilized, while
misinformation propagated by opposition media outlets and
NGOs that fed the protests has been publicly discredited.
Formation of the new National Assembly was delayed by over 80
days, but it has since been seated, with President Lee's
Grand National Party controlling two-thirds of the votes in
that legislative body.

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BUT NOT ENTIRELY
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5. (C) The protests made it clear, however, that a power
struggle continues between conservative leaders who won big
in both the December 2007 presidential and April 2008
National Assembly elections and the progressives who were
ousted from leadership of the country after ten years of
liberal rule. The left took a huge body blow in those
elections, but can expect to mount significant opposition
because they find many conservatives willing to join in
kicking President Lee when he is down.


6. (C) As a result, we have a pro-U.S. government to work
with that is politically skittish about being seen as too
accommodating of U.S. interests. Over the past two months,
ROKG negotiators have been extremely stubborn in their
approach to concluding the next Special Measures Agreement
(SMA) for defense burden sharing and completing the return of
nine former USFK military facilities slated for return by the
end of this year; this despite our own significant displays
of flexibility on both issues. In general, when ROK
negotiators sit across the table from U.S. officials they
feel a need to demonstrate that they are doing due diligence
in standing up to any perceived U.S. pressure. This is
partly for show, so there is a reasonable expectation that
the Koreans will ultimately demonstrate some flexibility of
their own nearer to the conclusion of these negotiations.
This round has been unusually difficult, however, because the
Lee Myung-bak Government feels it must very carefully
consider the timing and content of any such agreements with
the United States, and is especially concerned about leaving
the door open to criticism that is harming Korean interests
by caving in to the will of Washington.


7. (C) An additional complication is the unwelcome news of a
global economic downturn that has already devalued the Korean
Won by about 30 percent against the U.S. dollar. This will
no doubt prompt the ROK Government to make the same argument
it made when negotiating an SMA during last decade's Asian
Economic Crisis: namely, that any increase in its burden
sharing contribution must await improvements to the economy.
You can remind them that they pledged to us back then that if
we cut them some slack on the exchange rate in the 1998
agreement, they would make it up to us as soon as their
economy recovered by increasing their SMA contribution to 50
percent of USFK's non-personnel stationing costs (NPSC).
That promise was never kept. This year, in fact, the ROK SMA
contribution will cover only 43 percent of our NPSC. And
since NPSC is only a sub-set of the overall cost of our being
here, the ROK contribution actually equates to only about 25
percent of our total stationing costs. In short, the ROKG is
getting a good deal on its security and should be doing more
to make that case to its critics. Furthermore, the global
economic problems are affecting us all, and the ROK case for
special consideration is no more compelling than our own.

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STRONG U.S. COMMITMENT; LOOKING FOR SAME
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8. (C) To accentuate the positive you might recall to the
DEFMIN that President Lee pledged his commitment to
strengthening the U.S.-ROK Alliance in his inaugural address,
and encourage him to do all he can to help his president
deliver on that promise. President Lee was elected on a
platform that in addition to the call for a strengthened
Alliance included support for the Korea-U.S. FTA (which Lee
sent to the National Assembly last week),the desire to make
improvements in the ROK's relations with Japan, and an
insistence on more reciprocity from North Korea in exchange
for ROK economic aid. Those are clearly the right directions
for Korea to take toward strengthening its own economic,
diplomatic and security interests. They are also directions
we favor. So with respect to President Lee's domestic
political concerns, you might counter that ROK leaders on the
Alliance must not allow themselves to be driven by, or
deterred from, those important and principled goals because
of sensitivity to attacks from minority parties and
anti-Alliance NGOs.


9. (C) You can offer to help by publicly and privately
pointing out the strong and continuing U.S. commitment to the
Republic of Korea, for that reassurance will add strength to
Lee's pro-U.S. position. Minister Lee will likely be
wondering what the upcoming change in U.S. leadership will
mean for Korea. He will no doubt use his visit to Washington
to meet with representatives of the both the Democrat and
Republican presidential campaigns in an attempt to ascertain
how American commitment to Korea's security (and to ratifying
the KORUS FTA, which Korea concluded at great political cost)
might be affected by the victory of either candidate. You
can assure him of the U.S. Government's enduring commitment
to the U.S.-ROK Mutual Defense Treaty, pointing out that our
interests in Northeast Asia are of such great importance to
our own national security that the incoming administration
(from either party) is very unlikely to alter our alliance
relations with either Korea or Japan. Both alliances are too
important, and support for them is strongly bipartisan.

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KEY ALLIANCE TASKS
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10. (C) Key messages to employ with Defense Minister Lee and
other senior ROK military officials with whom you will be
meeting include the following:

--- The U.S.-Republic of Korea relationship remains firmly
rooted in the deeply-shared fundamental interests of great
importance to both our countries.

--- The United States Government is fully committed to
working with President Lee to strengthen our economic ties,
update our security alliance, and enhance our close
people-to-people interchange.

--- To further strengthen and appropriately update the
U.S.-ROK Alliance, we must work together to speed up
implementation of our three key bilateral Alliance
Transformation agreements: 1) relocation of USFK from
Yongsan; 2) consolidation of other U.S. bases on the
peninsula; and 3) the transfer, as scheduled, of wartime
operational control to the ROK military.


11. (C) It is important to point out that while the U.S.
commitment to the Alliance is enduring, Washington strongly
believes we need to take steps to improve the structure and
political posture of our 58-year old security relationship.
We must do that by implementing needed Alliance
Transformation through the Yongsan Relocation Plan (YRP),the
Land Partnership Plan (LPP) and the Strategic Implementation
Plan (STP) for the transfer of OPCON. To implement those
agreements, political will must be sustained and national
treasure must be expended by both our governments. If we
fail to do that the Alliance will fall out of step with the
rapid changes taking place in Korean society and throughout
the region today. Many have advised that is already the
case, and that such adjustments to our military posture are,
in fact, long overdue. Our approach to the Alliance must
therefore embody both enduring commitment and appropriate
evolutionary change.


12. (C) Implementations of those changes are clearly a
problem. YRP and LPP were set to be completed this year, but
have as yet barely gotten off the ground. In just the last
24 months their estimated completion dates have reportedly
slipped by more than seven years (to 2015!). On top of that
there are extremely worrisome indications that MND may be
looking to back away from the OPCON agreement. Money is a
big part of the problem, with the slow progress to date
largely due to an inadequate financial commitment by the
ROKG. The situation hasn't been helped by the fact that
prices for construction materials and the fuel to operate
heavy machinery have continued to climb throughout the
delays, dramatically raising the estimated cost of the
projects. Since delays will only serve to damage American
views of the dependability of the Alliance and cost the ROKG
more in the end, wise and committed leadership is needed to
speed completion. Now is the time for the ROKG to increase
the relatively low percentage of GNP that it spends on
defense.


13. (C) As you may have already experienced, Minister Lee is
fond of lecturing senior U.S. officials on the need for us to
develop a better understanding of the Korean perspective.
While he no doubt makes a good point, the problem with his
message is that he seems to equate understanding of Korea
with greater compromise on the part of the United States,
while viewing the converse - greater understanding of the
U.S. position - as caving in to Washington. This is
reflected in the ROKG's aforementioned approach to Alliance
negotiations. The truth is that the strength of the U.S.-ROK
Alliance is primarily dependent upon the depth of our shared
national interests, and that is where the focus from both
Seoul and Washington should be directed. You can redirect
the conversation there when the Minister pulls out his
violin.

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KEY ALLIANCE ROLES
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14. (C)

--- Specifically, you can point to the North Korean threat
and our shared commitment to defend against it -- the
Alliance's peninsular role.

--- You might also point out that the Alliance also serves to
strengthen regional stability by sending a clear message to
other powers in the region that our two strong militaries
share a strong commitment to peace -- the Alliance's regional
role.

--- Finally, you can deliver the important compliment that
the U.S.-ROK Alliance is becoming more of a global
partnership, and that together we are helping to enhance
international security through our combined contributions to
addressing serious challenges around the world -- the
Alliance's global role.


15. (C) At this point in your conversation with Lee you
might urge greater U.S.-ROK-Japan trilateral cooperation
through the military trilateral talks set to take place in
early November, pointing out how it could lead to improved
response to future natural and humanitarian disasters in the
region. You may wish to explore the Minister's recent
statement to the National Assembly that he favors full ROK
commitment to the important work of the Proliferation
Security Initiative (PSI). Since we have indications MND is
exploring the idea, you could also urge him to send a ROK
Naval vessel to help protect commercial shipping from pirate
attacks off the East Coast of Africa, and to escort UN food
and medical assistance in that troubled region. You could
thank him for the ROKG decision to send an interagency survey
team to Afghanistan, and encourage an increased Korean
contribution to the ongoing stabilization effort there.
Finally, you can favorably inquire about legislation that is
expected to pass the National Assembly authorizing MND to
stand up a permanently-trained and ready peacekeeping force
of 2,000 to 3,000 troops. All are indications of "Global
Korea" and its commitment to applying its impressive
capabilities to help address problems around the world.


16. (C) In conclusion, I would say that in light of all the
good the United States and the Republic of Korea are doing in
the world it is beneath us as great countries, close allies,
and firm friends, to incessantly debate every step we take in
the base relocation process, haggle over a few percentage
points of burden sharing money, or argue about what are
relatively minor environmental issues relating to camp
returns. Put simply: the U.S.-ROK Alliance is greater than
that, and should be treated as such.
STANTON