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The government has singled out the military for as much as an 8 percent budget increase next year, this while freezing or reducing other areas. Next year¡¯s defense budget will be up W1.4 trillion ($1.2 billion) or 45 percent of the increases throughout the national budget. Still, on the one hand you have the Ministry of National Defense greatly disappointed, while others are upset at what they¡¯re calling an unreasonable increase in defense spending at a time when the economy is showing signs of long term recession.
The fundamental reason for the situation is the calls for ¡°sovereign national defense¡± that have been getting main-stage attention since the beginning of the current government. President Roh Moo-hyun has consistently talked about sovereign defense since his inauguration, and has repeatedly said that he¡¯s going to increase spending in the area to 3 percent of the GDP. At his Liberation Day address, he announced an ambitious desire to ¡°create the basis for our military to have the capabilities of sovereign defense within the next 10 years.¡± The Ministry of National Defense, however, says it can¡¯t even dream about the idea with this kind of increase.
Our security environment is such that we have little choice but to spend a given amount to increase defense spending, no matter how difficult the economy may be. The problem is just how fully the country agrees with the increases. And it¡¯s all the more shocking when the money isn¡¯t being spent on things that would revive the economy, but that the increase itself won¡¯t even make up for the differences when the United States Forces Korea relocates farther from the front lines.
According to the Korea Institute for Defense Analysis, the cost of making the country able to defend itself by itself would be W209 trillion over 20 years. It wouldn¡¯t be too much to say that figure is reason enough to tie up the economy and cause it to lose its vitality.
The government should stop using ¡°sovereign national defense¡± to make the relocation or withdrawal of the USFK an established fact. It would be far wiser to consider the economic situation, the North Korean nuclear issue and other concerns together with defense, and employ all available diplomatic strength to coordinate the timing and speed of what happens in this area. The elements in our society who have led the way in opposing U.S. troops and in anti-Americanism need to tell the rest of the country exactly what their views are on the current situation, and bear responsibility for whatever may result.
Sept. 3, 2003
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