By Mina Pollmann
The U.S. is pushing for more cooperation between its allies. Are those efforts bearing fruit?
When the U.S., Japan, and South Korea concluded a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to expand trilateral defense cooperation through an intelligence sharing agreement last December, it was heralded as a stride in the right direction. It was a “good first step,” to use the exact words of David Shear, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asia and Pacific Security Affairs, who spoke last Friday at an event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
At the same time, Shear also expressed hopes that such cooperation would continue beyond the trilateral information sharing agreement, commenting that opportunities for further such arrangements should be explored. But Shear also conceded the need to be “realistic and patient in how we approach this, given the sensitivities.”
The MOU allows Tokyo and Seoul to voluntarily share sensitive information on North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs with each other through the United States. However, it is difficult to avoid the perception that this is a stopgap measure in response to the failure of the bilateral General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) in summer 2012. As The Hankyoreh reports, since the MOU is limited to threats posed by North Korea, “the agreement is not wholly satisfactory to the U.S., which wants the three countries to share all their military intelligence with each other.”
Read the full story at The Diplomat