Duk-Ki Kim - Naval Strategy in Northeast Asia: Geo-strategic Goals, Policies and Prospects

NAVAL STRATEGY
IN NORTHEAST ASIA

CASS SERIES: NAVAL POLICY AND HISTORY
ISSN 1366-9478

Series Editor: Holger Herwig

The series will publish, first and foremost, fresh quality manuscripts by research scholars in the general area of naval policy and history, without national or chronological limitations. Furthermore, it will from time to time issue collections of important articles as well as reprints of classic works.

1. Austro-Hungarian Naval Policy, 19041914
Milan N. Vego

2. Far Flung Lines:
Studies in Imperial Defence in Honour of Donald Mackenzie Schurman
Edited by Keith Neilson and Greg Kennedy

3. Maritime Strategy and Continental Wars
Rear Admiral Raja Menon

4. The Royal Navy and German Naval Disarmament 19421947
Chris Madsen

5. Naval Strategy and Operations in Narrow Seas
Milan N. Vego

6. The Pen and Ink Sailor: Charles Middleton and the King's Navy, 17781813
John E. Talbott

7. The Italian Navy and Fascist Expansionism, 19351940
Robert Mallett

8. The Role of the Merchant Marine in Maritime Foreign Defence Policy Formation
Edited by Greg Kennedy

9. Naval Strategy in Northeast Asia: Geo-strategic Goals, Policies and Prospects
Duk-Ki Kim

10. Naval Policy and Strategy in the Mediterranean Sea: Past, Present and Future
Edited by John B. Hattendorf

NAVAL STRATEGY
IN NORTHEAST ASIA

Geo-strategic Goals, Policies and
Prospects

COMMANDER DUK-KI KIM

Republic of Korea Navy

First published in 2000 in Great Britain by
FRANK CASS PUBLISHERS
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, 0X14 4RN

and in the United States of America by
FRANK CASS PUBLISHERS
270 Madison Ave, New York NY 10016

Transferred to Digital Printing 2005

Website: www.frankcass.com

Copyright 2000 Duk-Ki Kim

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Typeset by Vitaset, Paddock Wood, Kent

Cover illustration: The 1996 RIMPAC (Rim of the Pacific) multinational exercise.
Held near Hawaii every two years, this exercise involves five countries: South
Korea, the United States, Japan, Australia and Canada. Source: print courtesy
of the ROK NAVY.

The Asia Pacific region is by definition a highly maritime environment, with the sea being the major medium of communication and access. It is thus an area of primary concern to maritime strategists, especially in the context of potential flash-points such as the South China Sea and Taiwan. It is therefore very much to be welcomed that officers from the region are taking a great interest in the maritime dimension of regional security issues. Commander Duk-Ki Kim was a valued member of the PhD programme of the Hull Centre for Security Studies during its formative years in the mid-1990s. He worked hard and long on his chosen topic of the scope for maritime co-operative security measures in Northeast Asia, a subject which necessitated a major survey of the geostrategic goals, policies and prospects of the regional actors, and which forms the basis for this book.

The result is not only a comprehensive analysis of the regional naval situation but a constructive assessment of the prospects for a scheme of co-operative security, including incidents-at-sea agreements and transparency measures, to prevent maritime confrontations getting out of hand. Kim's assessment of the practicality of the range of possible measures of naval arms control and confidence-building and similar measures is of particular significance, coming as it does from a professional officer in a local navy. Commander Kim understands the historical background and does not underestimate the problems in building such a regime, but neither does he deny the potential of some types of measure. After returning to Korea, he was himself involved in organising in Seoul in 1998 the sixth meeting of the Western Pacific Naval Symposium (WPNS), one of the major elements of naval dialogue on co-operation and transparency in the region. The current book is thus not a mere academic study but a brave attempt by a professional to grapple in a foreign language with a key issue of naval policy. It is a worthy contribution to what I hope will be a growing debate.

Dr Eric Grove
Centre for Security Studies, University of Hull

The Pacific Ocean covers one-third of the world's surface and comprises more than half of the earth's ocean area. In addition, the Pacific basin is home to the majority of the world's population and to seven of the globe's largest and most powerful military forces. Territorial disputes (usefully listed here in ) abound, from the relatively minor matter of the Paracel Islands to the larger issue of the Spratlys, an island chain sitting astride a 1,700-mile sea lane from the Straits of Malacca to Hong Kong, along which each day 200 tankers haul 80 per cent of Japan's oil supply from the Middle East. And then there is the critical yet vexing matter of the South China Sea 1.4 million square miles in area, site of one-third of the world's shipping, one-tenth of its ocean harvest and nearly half of its shipboard attacks, with trillions of dollars in potential oil and natural gas revenues at stake claimed in its entirety by China under the name of Nanhai. In environmental terms, blast and cyanide fishing, coastal development, and sea pollution from oil spills and industrial waste disposal endanger 80 per cent of coral reefs in the South China Sea. In short, an area of vital importance and potential conflict in the coming millennium.

Commander Duk-Ki Kim of the Republic of Korea Navy offers a critical analysis of this vast area in the post-Cold War world in what was originally a doctoral thesis under the supervision of Eric J. Grove at Hull University. Kim first elucidates the naval arms build-up in the area and then defines what he calls the new geo-strategic maritime environment in Northeast Asia. Thereafter, he delineates the declining strategic roles of the United States and Russia in Asia the result of sharply reduced defence budgets, curtailed maritime operations and imperial overstretch (Paul M. Kennedy). Next, Kim looks at the medium powers such as China and Japan as they continue to build and deploy naval forces in the area, and seek to assume the roles formerly reserved for the two superpowers.