Abstract
This article argues that both North Korea's nuclear weapons and Chinese attempts at wedge-driving between South Korea and the United States represent threats to degrade and perhaps decouple the U.S.-South Korea alliance. These will intensify regardless of the outcome of current diplomacy on the Korean Peninsula. This puts at risk a component of the San Francisco System that has served as a pillar for Northeast Asian regional security for almost seven decades. We assess what the potential problems will be for the U.S.-South Korea alliance as they emanate from these two policy challenges, and what actions policymakers in both Washington and Seoul can prioritize in order to modify or neutralize them.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 40-56 |
| Number of pages | 17 |
| Journal | Asian Politics and Policy |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2020 Jan 1 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This research was supported by the Korea Foundation/Global Networking Department Grant‐270, the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant (NRF‐2016S1A2A2911284) funded by the Korean government, and by the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies Research Fund of 2019–20. Research by Dr Jangho Kim was additionally supported by the Global Research Network program through the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea, and the National Research Foundation of Korea (Project Number: NRF‐2016S1A2A2912646).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Policy Studies Organization
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Sociology and Political Science
- Political Science and International Relations