| | | | |  | | By Phelim Kine and Robbie Gramer | |  South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol speaks during the declaration of emergency martial law on Dec. 03, 2024 in Seoul. Yoon was key to the Biden administration’s strategy to build influence in the region through alliances. | South Korean Presidential Office via Getty Images | With help from Maggie Miller and Joe Gould Subscribe here | Email Robbie | Email Eric The impeachment of South Korean president YOON SUK YEOL could mean trouble for JOE BIDEN’s alliances in the Indo-Pacific — and therefore the effort to offset China’s growing economic, diplomatic and military influence in the region. Yoon was key to the Biden administration’s strategy to build influence in the region through alliances, including with South Korea, Japan and the Philippines. But opposition leader LEE JAE-MYUNG — who is currently the overwhelming favorite to win an election to replace Yoon due to public dismay over his martial law declaration earlier this month — sings a very different tune on China. Lee has historically been skeptical of U.S.-South Korean relations, as well as the need to protect Taiwan from possible Chinese aggression. Lee told reporters during the 2021 presidential election that he favored Seoul adopting a “strategic ambiguity” stance and not feeling pressure to “pick a side” between the U.S. and China. In March, he said that South Korea should steer clear of any possible conflict across the Taiwan Strait. While Lee is a staunch supporter of the U.S.-South Korean alliance, he’s unlikely to replicate Yoon’s “ingratiating” approach to Washington and will be “less inclined to prioritize strong U.S.-ROK relations above all else,” argued FRANK AUM, who served as adviser to four secretaries of Defense on issues related to Northeast Asia and the Korean Peninsula. There is no guarantee that the constitutional court will produce a two-thirds majority verdict in favor of the move to force Yoon to step down. And the nine-member court is currently short three judges due to bureaucratic delays, which may postpone consideration of Yoon’s impeachment. But the court ruled on South Korea’s two previous presidential impeachments well under the 180 days that the law requires for such verdicts, suggesting that Yoon’s fate will be clear by spring 2025. An election would follow 60 days later. The deepening in diplomatic and security ties via the U.S.-Japan-South Korea trilateral alliance that Biden brokered with Seoul and Tokyo last year may also be at risk under a possible Lee presidency. “It’s not likely that Lee will advocate as strongly for ROK-Japan ties as Yoon did [and] Lee also seems wary of trilateral military cooperation, so it’s uncertain whether trilateral military exercises will continue in the future at the current level,” Aum added. It’s possible that Lee — if elected — will see political red meat in tapping deep-seated South Korean resentment toward Japan and try to reverse Yoon’s diplomatic bridge to Japan, and even backpedal on Seoul’s commitment to the trilateral. A Lee government “could do dramatic things” that could harm those fragile ties, said ROBERT SUTTER, a former national intelligence officer for East Asia and the Pacific. That could include “making a big issue with Japan demanding that they apologize again [for atrocities during Japan’s colonial occupation] and saying ‘we’re not going to really talk to you until you do that,” Sutter said. Japan is bracing for that potential twist in its relations with Seoul. “No doubt Tokyo is now questioning the durability of Yoon's outreach to Japan,” said YUKI TATSUMI, former special assistant for political affairs at the Japanese embassy in Washington and current director of the Japan Program at the Stimson Center. That’s a potential injection of unpredictability that Japan may struggle with. “As we wait for the return of Trump 2.0, with the much weaker leadership of Ishiba in Tokyo, Yoon's ousting is one more uncertainty Japan does not need in its foreign policy,” Tatsumi added.
| | | UKRAINE ASSASSINATION: Ukrainian operatives on Tuesday killed a leading Russian military official in a brazen bomb attack in Moscow, as our colleague VERONIKA MELKOZEROVA reports. Lieutenant-General IGOR KIRILLOV, commander of the nuclear, biological and chemical forces of the Russian army, died in the blast as he was heading out of a residential block in Moscow. A few hours before the attack, Ukraine’s security service, the SBU, charged Kirillov in absentia for ordering the widespread use of banned chemical weapons against the Ukrainian army on the eastern and southern fronts of the battlefield. ELECTION INTERFERENCE, ROMANIA EDITION: The European Commission has formally opened an investigation into whether TikTok violated EU laws in Romania’s presidential elections by vaulting a far-right and pro-Russia candidate to the top of the polls, as ELIZA GKRITSI reports. Loyal NatSec Daily readers will recall that Romania’s presidential elections shocked the transatlantic security establishment after CĂLIN GEORGESCU won the first round of Romania’s presidential election in late November. Romania’s courts later annulled the election, citing the irregularities surrounding his victory as part of a coordinated Russian “hybrid” attack on the NATO country. IT’S TUESDAY: Thanks for tuning in to NatSec Daily! This space is reserved for the top U.S. and foreign officials, the lawmakers, the lobbyists, the experts and the people like you who care about how the natsec sausage gets made. Aim your tips and comments at rgramer@politico.com and ebazail@politico.com, and follow Robbie and Eric on X @RobbieGramer and @ebazaileimil. While you’re at it, follow the rest of POLITICO’s global security team: @dave_brown24, @HeidiVogt, @jessicameyers, @RosiePerper, @nahaltoosi, @PhelimKine, @connorobrienNH, @paulmcleary, @reporterjoe, @JackDetsch, @samuelskove, @magmill95, and @johnnysaks130
| | A message from Lockheed Martin: All-Domain Deterrence, Now and for the Future
Lockheed Martin is leveraging advanced commercial technologies, such as artificial intelligence, edge computing and 5G.MIL® connectivity to meet the evolving challenges of a more complex battlespace. Learn more. | | | | | TRUMP’S LIKELY AIR FORCE PICK: Trump donor ANDREW MCKENNA is a leading contender to be secretary of the Air Force, three people close to the transition told our own JACK DETSCH, CONNOR O’BRIEN and PAUL MCLEARY (for Pros!). McKenna, a private pilot who heads a small Washington advisory and investment firm, would be the latest of Trump’s picks to take on top jobs at the Pentagon without significant experience inside the building. Trump’s pick to be Defense secretary, PETE HEGSETH, and DAN DRISCOLL, Trump’s pick for Army secretary, have both served in the military, but neither have held government jobs. Nor has JOHN PHELAN, selected by Trump to be secretary of the Navy, who, like McKenna, is a major Trump donor.
| | POLAND GOES ALL IN ON DRONES: Poland has inked a $310 million deal with U.S. defense contracting giant General Dynamics to obtain a fleet of MQ-9B Sky Guardian drones, as the Defense Post reports. It’s the latest sign of how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is shaping European militaries inside the NATO alliance. Poland is pouring money into its military budget, outpacing other NATO allies (including the United States) in spending some 4.7 percent of GDP on defense. The war in Ukraine has also highlighted the importance of drones in modern warfare for both intelligence and surveillance as well as offensive operations.
| | FIRST IN NATSEC DAILY — MORE DEMOCRATIC PRESSURE ON ISRAEL: A group of 19 Democratic lawmakers are issuing fresh calls for Biden to cut off offensive weapons shipments to Israel, according to a copy of the letter obtained by NatSec Daily. “We believe continuing to transfer offensive weapons to the Israeli government prolongs the suffering of the Palestinian people and risks our own national security by sending a message to the world that the U.S. will apply its laws, policies, and international law selectively,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter, led by progressive Rep. GREG CASAR (D-Texas). The letter was sent to Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN and Defense Secretary LLOYD AUSTIN. “Furthermore, a failure to act will put Israeli lives in danger by prolonging Netanyahu’s war, isolating Israel on the international stage, and creating further instability in the region,” the letter adds. While the letter probably won’t sway Biden’s policy, it’s the latest sign of growing dissatisfaction in some corners of the Democratic party over Biden’s ongoing support for Israel. It also signals that the historic bipartisan support for Israel is, at least on the left, cracking under the weight of its campaign in Gaza. READY TO RUMBLE: The House Foreign Affairs Committee’s incoming chair, Rep. BRIAN MAST (R-Fla.) didn’t dispute Democrats who fear he will usher out the panel’s bipartisan traditions. In fact, he fired back, as our own JOE GOULD writes in. “If Democrats are trying to justify taking 30 percent out of somebody's paycheck and then sending it to Ecuador to do a drag show as diplomacy, or they’re taking half a million dollars and sending it to Nepal and saying we're helping them expand atheism — I could give you a hundred examples — If they don't want to be bipartisan to cut those things, then it won't be bipartisan, then so be it," Mast said Tuesday on America’s Newsroom, the Fox News program. Asked whether he is someone with whom Democrats can have a conversation, Mast echoed Trump’s transnational approach to diplomacy. “I think the conversation is always this: How does the diplomacy that we’re doing put America first?” he said. “Number one, how does the diplomacy we're doing put America first? Does a dollar and a diplomat help to put America in the right place? You ask ‘What does America need from the country or region?’ … If we're not, we're being played for suckers, and President Trump doesn't want America to be played for a sucker. Nor do I.” CHINA COMMITTEE’S FENTANYL OFFENSIVE: The House Select Committee on China launched a new front in its battle against Beijing’s role in producing the fentanyl fueling the U.S. opioid overdose epidemic. The committee’s fentanyl policy working group unveiled three bipartisan bills on Tuesday that target specific aspects of the Chinese sources of the precursor chemicals that Mexican cartels process into fentanyl that ends up on U.S. city streets. They include legislation that will create “a coordinated task force” to combat synthetic narcotics trafficking, a bill that will allow for sanctions of Chinese ports or vessels that “knowingly or recklessly facilitate” shipments of illegal synthetic opioids and legislation that will impose civil penalties on Chinese exporters and ports that fail to provide “appropriate transparency and related safeguards” to prevent narcotics trafficking. The bills seek to curb China’s “state-sponsored poisoning of the American people, costing 100,000 American lives every single year,” working group co-chair Rep. JAKE AUCHINCLOSS (D-Mass.) told reporters Tuesday.
| | | |   | | | | | GREEN UNLOADS: The chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. MARK GREEN (R-Tenn.), lashed out at Beijing for its role in the Salt Typhoon hack — a massive, ongoing breach of U.S. telecom companies that is considered to be one of the most devastating cyberattacks in U.S. history. “It's time we go on the offensive, I don't mean defensive, I mean offensive,” Green said in an event at the Hudson Institute think tank today with Hudson scholar JONATHAN WARD. “It's time to strike back, and we need to make the world aware that we have the capability,” Green said. “China needs to know where the knife is against their throat, I’m confident that our team has capabilities that are potentially beyond the Chinese, we just need to let them know.”
| | | | — CHRYSTIA FREELAND resigned as Canada’s deputy prime minister and finance minister. (Read more about how Trump has inserted himself into the political drama in Washington’s neighbor up north from our colleagues MIKE BLANCHFIELD and SUE ALLAN.) — Rep. GERRY CONNOLLY (D-Va.) was named top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, besting a push from progressive Rep. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-N.Y.) to take the leadership post.
| | A message from Lockheed Martin: 21st Century Security® – A New Standard of Connected Protection
We’re enhancing our platform-centric business with a network-centric model for cross-domain interconnectivity and interoperability. From space to cyberspace, air, sea and ground – Lockheed Martin is leading the mission-centric approach. Learn more. | | | | | — MARK BOWDEN, The Atlantic: The crumbling foundation of America’s military — MASON BOYCOTT-OWEN, SOPHIE INGE and DAN BLOOM, POLITICO: Prince Andrew spy scandal rocks British establishment — EMILY DE LA BRUYÈRE and NATHAN PICARSIC, Foundation for Defense of Democracies: The near enemy: China’s subnational reach into the United States
| | — Center for Strategic and International Studies, 9 a.m.: Immigration policy solutions to shortages in critical sectors of the U.S. economy — Atlantic Council, 9 a.m.: The NATO perspective: Strengthening resilience within the alliance — U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee, 2:30 p.m.: Trade wars & higher costs: The case against Trump’s tariffs Thanks to our editor, Rosie Perper, who is undermining our alliance systems as we vote to impeach her. Thanks to our producer, Giselle Ruhiyyih Ewing, who will help us counter Rosie’s aggression in the Indo-Pacific. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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