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By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent

On May 1, US President Barack Obama appointed Mark Lippert, 41, one of his close confidantes and the Chief of Staff to the Secretary of Defense, as the successor to Sung Kim, US Ambassador to South Korea.

This is the first time that the American president has appointed a member of his inner circle as the ambassador to South Korea. It is a highly irregular decision, considering that the position has generally been held by career diplomats who have been equivalent in rank to a deputy assistant secretary in the State Department.

The appointment is believed to be intended to promote the policy of ‘rebalancing to Asia’, which Obama has heralded as one of his key foreign policy objectives. Lippert was in charge of the national defense component of the policy while serving as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Affairs at the Pentagon from 2011 to 2012, and since 2013 he has been involved in Asian policy while serving as the Chief of Staff for the Secretary of Defense.

It is expected that Lippert will play an active role in efforts to strengthen trilateral security cooperation between South Korea, the US, and Japan, which is intended to check China. Obama emphasized three-way cooperation in the area of security during the summit with leaders of South Korea and Japan in April at the Hague.

During a seminar on the US-Japanese alliance organized by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation in Washington on Apr. 30, the day before his appointment, Lippert indicated that South Korea, the US, and Japan would continue to enhance their security cooperation in order to respond to North Korea’s provocations and threats. More specifically, he expressed his hope for holding a trilateral meeting between the defense ministers of the three countries at the Asia Security Summit (also known as the Shangri-La Dialogue), which will be taking place in Singapore, beginning on May 30 and lasting for two days.

Lippert also took part in the Defense Trilateral Talks (DTT) between the three countries last month as the US representative and referred to the DTT as “very productive and realistic.” In regard to Japan’s efforts to gain recognition for the right to collective self-defense, Lippert said that this would be important in terms of Japan expanding its military ability and increasing its flexibility.

Lippert served as an advisor to Obama between 2005 to 2008 while Obama was a US senator. When Lippert took a leave of absence to participate in the Iraq War in 2007, his position was filled by Denis McDonough, who is currently serving as the White House Chief of Staff. Immediately after Obama was elected president, Lippert joined the transition team, and after his inauguration, he served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff for the National Security Council. In short, he is a member of the “Obama family.”

One factor that appears to have been considered in making the appointment is that the South Korean government prefers officials who are capable of direct communication with the US President. There are also some observers who draw attention to the considerable gap between the rank of the appointee for US ambassador to South Korea, equivalent to an Assistant Deputy Secretary of State, and the US ambassadors to Japan and China. The ambassador to Japan is Caroline Kennedy, a daughter of a famous American family, while the ambassador to China is Max Baucus, a big-name politician.

Lippert is expected to assume the position in Aug. 2014, following the Senate confirmation process, though there is a severe backlog of confirmations at the moment, which could result in a delay.

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