Biden’s Hawkish Cabinet Portends Renewed US Militarism in Northeast Asia 

Photograph Source: U.S. Secretary of Defense – CC BY 2.0

Although the Biden administration has yet to present its North Korea policy, the new president’s cabinet includes many career diplomats and business lobbyists advocating the Cold War policy toward Asia and personnel from hawkish think tanks financed by the military industrial complex, leading many Korea experts to predict that an aggressive militaristic policy with respect to the Korean Peninsula is on the horizon.

In practical terms, this would translate into the projection of US military power over the Korean Peninsula through a de facto trilateral military alliance between the US, Japan and South Korea as part of the enlarged “Indo-Pacific plan.”

It would also mean returning to the doomed pressure policies of  Obama’s “strategic patience” approach toward North Korea, which emphasized containment via sanctions and deterrence while demanding substantial concessions from Pyongyang up front.

Moreover, it would entail using ongoing tension on the Korean Peninsula to justify massive military spending in order to advance the interests of the military-industrial complex: As Sara Lazar notes, “One-third of Biden’s Pentagon transition team alone lists as their most recent employment think tanks, organizations or companies that are either funded by the weapons industry or are directly part of this industry.” Meanwhile, in his latest op-ed, John Bolton–former national security advisor and saboteur of past US-DPRK agreements–exhorted Biden to include a military option as part of US policy on North Korea.

The renewal of a hawkish stance against the North will surely be met by a hardline response from Pyongyang, which has vowed to strengthen its nuclear deterrent capabilities as a guarantee against US “hostile policies” and military intervention.

North Korea’s fears are not unwarranted. Having lost over 20 percent of its population to indiscriminate US carpet bombing during the Korean War, it has lived under the shadow of the US nuclear threat since 1958, when Washington first introduced nuclear weapons to the Korean Peninsula. This existential threat against the North continues through the present day: according to Bob Woodward, the Trump Administration earmarked some 80 nuclear weapons for deployment against North Korea should hostilities erupt.

The clash of hardline policies on both sides may result in a dangerous standoff scenario, pushing the Korean peninsula to the brink of a nuclear conflict of unimaginable magnitude. To prevent such a catastrophe, a growing chorus of experts, including numerous former US officials, emphasize a pragmatic approach toward arms control that would aim to limit or reduce the North’s arsenal while working toward the eventual goal of complete denuclearization. Even Secretary of State Antony Blinken–a noted hawk–has in the past called for such an interim agreement, arguing in a 2018 New York Times editorial that Trump should use the Iran nuclear deal as a model for negotiating with Pyongyang.

For their part, international peace organizations in South Korea and US are increasingly advocating a “peace-first policy” which…