A leaked scandal from the U.S. Department of Defense could potentially sour the country’s diplomatic relationship with South Korea.
According to the New York Times, the leaked documents, called the “Pentagon Papers,” reveal that South Korea is reluctant to be drawn into a proxy war with Russia by providing military aid to the U.S., which could then end up in Ukraine.
“When reports emerged late last year that South Korea had agreed to sell artillery shells to help the United States replenish its stockpiles, it insisted that their ‘end user’ should be the U.S. military,” the report said. “But internally, top aides to President Yoon Suk Yeol were worried that their American ally would divert them to Ukraine.”
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s foreign advisers were reportedly “mired in concerns that the U.S. would not be the end user if South Korea were to comply with a U.S. request for ammunition.”
The leak also suggests that the Biden administration pressed the country to send ammunition despite its official policy of not providing lethal weapons to countries at war.
Former National Security Adviser Kim had suggested selling 330,000 rounds of 155-millimeter artillery shells to Poland, adding that “getting the ammunition to Ukraine quickly was the ultimate goal of the United States,” the Times noted.
Although the arrangement would go against South Korea’s government policy that forbids military aid to countries at war, former foreign affairs secretary Yi Mun-hui thought it might be possible for Poland to agree to being called “the end user” for the purposes of sending the ammunition destined for Ukraine, but that South Korea would need to “verify what Poland would do.”
Weapons experts such as Yang Uk believe that the leaked documents have just put South Korea in a difficult position.
“South Korea’s position has been that it will cooperate with the United States while not clashing with Russia,” Yang said, who is a weapons expert at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies. “The documents leaked put South Korea in a more difficult position.”
“It’s reasonable to suspect that the United States spies on top defense and security officials in Seoul, but it’s bad news for the general public ahead of the South Korea-U.S. summit,” he added. “People will ask, ‘We have been allies for seven decades, and you still spy on us?’”
