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31. The ROK–U.S. Alliance and the Third Offset Strategy

Author:
Patrick M. Cronin and Seongwon Lee
Publication Date:
04-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Journal of Korean Studies
Institution:
International Council on Korean Studies
Abstract:
The United States relies on its ability to project military power far forward of its shores in defense of national and allied interests. Yet the diffusion of technology, especially long-range and precision-guided munitions, poses profound challenges to this core assumption undergirding U.S. extended deterrence and alliance contingency response. The U.S. Department of Defense is seeking technological and operational innovations to deal with these unfavorable trends, largely through military modernization programs that are designed to preserve the United States’ capacity to deter aggression, dissuade adventurism, reassure allies, and defend allied and national interests in the event of conflict. Most analysis of America’s so-called “Third Offset Strategy” has focused on deploying leading-edge technologies to overcome China’s military modernization programs. Almost nothing has been written about a Third Offset Strategy through the prism of the Korean Peninsula. Yet the Third Offset Strategy can bolster the alliance’s response to North Korea, reinforce deterrence, and support regional security. This paper seeks to fill a gap in the analysis by assessing the emerging U.S. defense programs with respect to North Korea, Peninsula contingencies, and ROK–U.S. alliance cooperation on regional and outof-area security issues.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Alliance, and Deterrence
Political Geography:
Asia, North Korea, South America, and United States of America

32. Analyzing Japan’s Role in Korean Security within the Framework of the Quasi-Alliance Model

Author:
James F. Durand
Publication Date:
04-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Journal of Korean Studies
Institution:
International Council on Korean Studies
Abstract:
This paper assesses Japan’s role in Korean security using the quasialliance model. Developed by Professor Victor Cha, the quasi-alliance model to analyze the security relationship between Japan and the Republic of Korea, “two states that remain unallied despite sharing a common ally.” Cha defined the quasi-alliance model as “the triangular relationship between two states that are not allied, but share a third party as a common ally.” A key assumption is that the third state serves as the “great-power protector of the two states, and therefore exit opportunities for the two are limited.” While historical issues affected relations between Tokyo and Seoul, American security policies were the primary determinant of cooperation between Japan and Korea. American policy changes produced distinct “abandonment” or “entrapment” responses within the U.S.-Japan and U.S.-ROK security alliances: shared perceptions yielded cooperation, while differing views produced friction. This paper analyzes America’s East Asia policies during the Bush and Obama administrations to assess Japanese and Korean reactions. Analyzed through the quasi-alliance model, American policies produced asymmetric responses in Japan and Korea, inhibiting security cooperation between Tokyo and Seoul. Diverging views of China exacerbated inherent friction between Korea and Japan. Thus, Japan will play a limited role in Korean security.
Topic:
Security, Grand Strategy, and Alliance
Political Geography:
Japan, China, Asia, South Korea, North Korea, and United States of America

33. New Trends in Sino-Pak Defence and Strategic Relations since 9/11: Indian Concern

Author:
Zahid Ali Khan and Shabir Ahmad
Publication Date:
07-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
South Asian Studies
Institution:
Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
Abstract:
Pakistan relations with China remain a cornerstone of Pakistan’s foreign Policy. Their common views, perceptions, approaches, and policies at the regional and global level made them a durable friends, allies and partners. Their hostility towards India, their support each other in wars against India, and the conclusion of different agreements further strengthened their bilateral mutual relations between these two countries. And above all, China’s moral, diplomatic, political, financial, and military support since 1971 proved a great source of consolation and encouragement to Pakistan in the difficult hours. In the changing global scenario since 9/11, witnessed drastic improvement in Sino-Pak military and strategic relations. Exchange of visits by high leaderships and other dignitaries, their growing coordination in Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea, Persian Gulf and Gwadar, the signing of naval and military agreements, their missiles and nuclear cooperation, provided both the countries with opportunity to counterweight India’s growing hegemony and supremacy. On her part, India is trying its best to frustrate the growing Sino- Pak Defence nexus by using a variety of tactics in order to protect and safeguard her interest in the region.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Regional Cooperation, Treaties and Agreements, Military Strategy, Weapons, Alliance, Oceans and Seas, and 9/11
Political Geography:
Pakistan, China, South Asia, India, Asia, and United States of America

34. España y Estados Unidos en un nuevo contexto estratégico

Author:
David García
Publication Date:
05-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Revista UNISCI/UNISCI Journal
Institution:
Unidad de investigación sobre seguridad y cooperación (UNISCI)
Abstract:
La estrategia de seguridad nacional de 2013 establece una clara continuidad respecto a la estrategia de 2011 respecto al tratamiento de la alianza y las relaciones con EEUU, aspecto positivo que demuestra un acuerdo en una política de Estado fundamental para España. Sin embargo, tiende a ser más un documento de consenso político y declarativo/informativo, que una estrategia de seguridad con mayor calado y profundidad. En este sentido, el análisis y la construcción de la estrategia denota discutibles concepciones y percepciones sobre la estructura del sistema internacional y la conducta de las grandes potencias, que pueden crear narrativas, estrategias y políticas peligrosas en una situación de reducción de capacidades que pueden llevar a un dilema de seguridad. En este sentido, las alianzas y políticas estratégicas de España pueden moverse entre su reforzamiento (chain gangs) o su abandono (buckpassing), incluyendo planificaciones estratégicas más realistas. Una revisión del Convenio de Cooperación para la Defensa dentro del marco de profundización de la Declaración Conjunta de 2001 sería una opción estratégica de primer orden para la política de seguridad de España.
Topic:
Security, Bilateral Relations, Alliance, and Strategic Stability
Political Geography:
Europe, Spain, North America, and United States of America

35. A Gilded Alliance: Global Korea’s G-20/Yeonpyeong Moment Revisited

Author:
Haejong Lee
Publication Date:
09-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
East Asia Institute (EAI)
Abstract:
Alliance is an instrument for national interest, which is dependent upon the international environment and defined by domestic, democratic political processes. This commonsense notion of alliance was not fully embraced by the incoming South Korean administration of Lee Myung Bak in 2008. For the Lee administration, South Korea’s alliance with the United States was much more than an instrument of foreign policy. The alliance embodied South Korea’s political identity and was severely damaged by the preceding Roh Moo Hyun administration’s anti-American, pro–North Korean policies. The restoration of the Republic of Korea (ROK)–US alliance was both the goal and key to its national security strategy of Global Korea to enhance South Korean’s influence, contribution, and stature on a global scale. Thereafter, in a circle of the alliance’s cheerleaders in both Seoul and Washington, the alliance has almost taken its own life: the alliance should be protected from disruptive political forces and modernized/adjusted/expanded into new dimensions for the preservation of the alliance itself. In the post–Cold War years, the United States has tried to modernize its military alliances in order to preserve its influence at reduced costs. The Barack Obama administration had to mend US alliances strained during the George W. Bush administration’s war on terror. In 2009, Presidents Lee and Obama agreed on “a comprehensive strategic alliance of bilateral, regional, and global scope, based on common values and mutual trust.” The so-called Great Recession, triggered by the fall of Lehman Brothers on September 15, 2008, has both brought to power and bedeviled the Obama administration; 9/15 has become a new historical marker, replacing 9/11. The very “common values” of the ROK-US strategic alliance—democracy and market economy—have been put to the test; the worries and cries over the decline of the US have arisen once again. In May 2010, the Obama administration published its national security strategy of national renewal and global leadership. Nation-building at home was the primary goal of and imperative to national security. Along with moral leadership to “live” American values, global architecture to embed both allies and challengers in US-centered institutional networks became a new feature of American global leadership. “The United States can, must, and will lead in this new century,” asserted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in September 2010 at the Council of Foreign Relations, the oldest bastion of American global leadership. She went on to declare that “the complexity and connection of today’s world have yielded a new American moment, a moment when our global leadership is essential, even if we must often lead in new ways.” Confirming that “the 21st century will be another great American century,” President Obama argued at this year’s Air Force Academy graduation ceremony that “we have laid the foundation for a new era of American leadership.” Global Korea, with a comprehensive strategic alliance and a free trade agreement with the United States and hosting of a G-20 meeting and nuclear security summit, has been an integral part and a success story of American global architecture. The Lee administration was awarded with the first two-plus-two (foreign and defense ministers) meeting in 2010, which had been previously held only with Japan, and a state visit to Washington in 2011. “The relation between our two countries has never been stronger,” commended Secretary of State Clinton in this year’s second two-plus-two meeting. Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-Jin confirmed the 2015 operation control plan and expressed commitment to make “the alliance the best alliance in the world.” American Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta lauded an ongoing trilateral collaboration, including Korea and Japan, to deter North Korea as “another way to strengthen and modernize our alliance.” It is widely disputed that the Obama administration has seized a new American moment and laid the foundation for a new American century. The Obama administration has been beset with rampant unemployment and snowballing deficits. “The Moment of Truth,” a bipartisan commission’s report on the financial crisis, issued a warning in 2010 that it is imperative to raise revenues and to cut both defense and nondefense spending—in short, a complete overhaul of the existing American national security state and social welfare system. However, the political polarization of the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street and resultant partisan gridlock have foiled nation-building at home and led to the first downgrading of the US credit rating and a self-made financial cliff of sequester—mandatory across-the-board budget cuts in the next ten years beginning January 2013. Against its lean and mean years, the Obama administration’s rhetoric of a new American moment or century rings hollow. In contrast, the positive—it couldn’t be better—evaluation on the state of the ROK-US alliance is widely held. Nevertheless, the alliance’s success does not resonate with a (far from positive) strategic reality facing South Korea; nor does the alliance translate into a smooth-working component of American global architecture. The Lee administration has doubled down on its alliance with the US. With the Obama administration’s “strategic patience” or no policy toward North Korea, the Lee administration has succeeded in punishing/isolating North Korea but failed to prevent the latter’s development of nuclear capacity, not to mention the latter’s denuclearization. Or, to put it differently, when it comes to nuclear issues or power transition, North Korea has been on its own, with no South Korean leverage over the latter. Most critically and tragically, Global Korea’s prime moment of hosting a G-20 meeting in November 2010 (in the midst of the final renegotiation of a Korea-US free trade agreement) was followed by North Korea’s shelling of Yeonpyeong Island, which in turn led to a joint Korean-US military exercise including the USS George Washington aircraft carrier and which was opposed by China. In the G-20/Yeonpyeong moment, the Lee administration succeeded in synchronizing its strategic and comprehensive alliance with the US and global contribution but rather miserably failed to maintain peace on the Korean Peninsula and manage its relationship with China. On the other hand, the ROK-US comprehensive and strategic alliance does not dispense with politics among allies; nor does it develop into a trilateral cooperation of the United States, South Korea, and Japan. The Lee administration has been at odds with the United States on the issues of spent nuclear fuel reprocessing and missile development, albeit much out of public scrutiny. In addition, the Lee administration has recently confronted Japan with the territorial issue of Dokdo and Japanese colonialism, along with a public relations campaign, including President Lee’s visit to Dokdo in August 2012. This was an abrupt turnabout from its attempt to share information with Japan on North Korea through a military accord—a trilateral collaboration that Panetta mentioned as a way to modernize the ROK-US alliance. Faced with a public uproar against the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), the Lee administration canceled the latter’s signing ceremony at the last minute and turned to confront Japan, which reciprocated with its territorial claim and disavowal of historical responsibilities for colonialism, and even a threat to halt financial cooperation. In sum, despite of (or because of, if you will) the much touted success of the ROK-US alliance, South Korea is now in a diplomatic wilderness, isolated from all of its neighbors—North Korea, China, and Japan. Why? It is, I argue, because President Lee’s Global Korea was a vision for a bygone, pre–Great Recession, and pre-G-2 world. As long as the United States confronted an assertive China with allies and new partners, South Korea’s strategic alliance with the United States could serve both the former’s security interests and the latter’s regional architect. The sinking of the Cheonan happened in the context of such confrontations of the United States and China over the South China Seas, which led to the rescheduling of transfer of operational control (from the United States to South Korea) from 2012 to 2015 that had been requested by the Lee administration. However, as the United States began to embrace China and both deemed it necessary to contain security tensions on the Korean Peninsula, an assertive South Korea against North Korea and China became a liability to the United States, and South Korea’s strategic, global, comprehensive alliance with the United States became superfluous, if not necessarily inimical, to South Korea’s local and regional interests. Such was the case after the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island. Following is a reconstruction of an anticlimax of Global Korea in the historical contexts of the Obama administration’s struggles to forge a new American global leadership.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, International Cooperation, G20, and Alliance
Political Geography:
Asia, South Korea, North America, and United States of America

36. Economic Interdependence, Alliance Cooperation, and Sino-U.S. Complex Interdependence

Author:
Scott Snyder
Publication Date:
12-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
East Asia Institute (EAI)
Abstract:
China’s rising economic strength has highlighted a need to understand in greater detail the impact of complex economic interdependence on prospects for alliance cohesion, especially when an ally comes to depend on a potential adversary as its leading trading partner and engine for economic growth. This is an issue that did not come into play to any significant degree in analyzing alliance dynamics during the cold war era precisely because the development of security and economic relationships during that period were aligned with and served to reinforce each other, and the level of economic ties among potential cold-war adversaries was minimal. Analysis of trade relationships among security allies from that period shows a clear correlation of preferences for trading relationships with security partners versus adversaries, but it is not clear based on that data alone that there was necessarily causality between economic trade patterns and security alliances. In fact, structural differences between market economies (that tended to be allied with each other) and non-market economies were a significant deterrent to the development of economic relations with non-security partners during the cold war. In the post-cold war era, economically interdependent trade and investment relationships have been relatively unconstrained by political and security considerations, resulting in a situation where non-security partners such as China, a potential challenger to U.S. power, have become actively integrated in global supply chains as a leading manufacturer of goods for the global market. In considering this question, Dong Sun Lee and Sung Eun Kim have attempted to provide an empirical analysis of the influence of bilateral economic relations as a factor in shaping America’s Asian alliances, concluding that “economic ties do not markedly reinforce the security alliances of East Asia, because they have an asymmetrical structure”(Lee and Kim 2010, 4). But in making the argument that asymmetry matters, Lee and Kim assume that the economic consequences of interdependence are negative for dynamics within the alliance and that these negative consequences may cancel out positive effects of economic interdependence, even though the main argument of that the paper proves is that economic ties do not necessarily reinforce security alliances. The authors’ assertions regarding asymmetrical economic relations as having an impact on alliance dynamics are unproven and not dealt with to any significant degree by the evidence presented in the paper.
Topic:
Diplomacy, International Cooperation, Alliance, and Economic Cooperation
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

37. A Complex Strategy to Overcome the Yeonpyeong Incident

Author:
Young-Sun Ha
Publication Date:
12-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
East Asia Institute (EAI)
Abstract:
Since North Korea’s deadly artillery barrage on Yeonpyeong Island, South Korea has been stepping up efforts in its defense posture and international cooperation. In preparing against any further provocation from the North, Seoul has been reinforcing forces on the island, strengthening defense and deterrence capabilities, and drastically increasing its defense budget. Somewhat belatedly, it has also been taking up actions to reexamine the strategies of the ROK-U.S. military alliance, demanding cooperation from China and Russia while maintaining the traditional trilateral cooperation with the United States and Japan. Of course, analyzing the causes of the weak response to the shelling and preparing to prevent further provocations are undoubtedly important. However, reading the bigger picture and formulating key strategies for the future is a far more critical task. The Kim Jong-il/Kim Jong-un leadership in November 2010 conducted two consecutive moves—revealing its uranium enrichment facilities and launching an artillery strike on Yeonpyeong Island. Understanding the situation of the whole East Asian region, while at the same time anticipating Pyongyang’s strategies and taking preemptive actions will be the main challenges ahead for Seoul. Firstly, it is important to understand the range of North Korea’s strategic options from aggressive diplomacy to peaceful diplomacy. The Korean Peninsula went through the Korean War in 1950 and following of the ceasefire, both Koreas were stuck between ‘hot war’ and ‘cold war.’ Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world has passed the stage of ‘cold peace’ and moved towards a ‘hot peace.’ In spite of this global shift, North Korea has been frequently using combinations of ‘cold war,’ ‘hot war,’ ‘cold peace,’ and ‘hot peace’ on the international strategic chessboard. For example, during the Cold War period North Korea provoked the South in a number of cases: Rangoon bombing (1983), bombing of Korean Air Flight 858 (1987), attempted Blue House raid (1968), North Korean infiltration in the Uljin and Samcheok areas (1968). Even in the post-Cold War period, nuclear tests, naval battles in the Yellow Sea, the sinking of Cheonan naval ship and the shelling on Yeonpyeong Island ensued. At the same time, Pyongyang has been aggressively demanding for a peace agreement to this day. The possibility for limited warfare on the Korean Peninsula came dangerously close with the recent Yeonpyeong shelling, more so than the last North Korean provocation, the sinking of the Cheonan. As the pendulum of war and peace on the Korean Peninsula swung from the ‘cold war’ to ‘hot war,’ greater chaos arise. It is expected that the Kim Jong-il/Kim Jong-un regime will try to maximize the use of this pendulum of peace and war in order to strengthen Kim Jong-un’s weak power base. In spite of the dangers, merely worrying about the possibility of war is not going to help. Rather, we have to understand precisely why the North has raised the bar of aggression from acts of terrorism to that of a direct artillery attack on South Korean territory. It is likely that the North would pursue a ‘cold peace’ offensive to utilize the amplitude of the pendulum. A complex picture emerges when looking back on the recent comments made by top officials from North Korea, the United States, and China. Seoul and Washington have called for Pyongyang to engage in measures for active denuclearization and reengagement in inter-Korean relations as preconditions for resuming the Six-Party Talks. North Korea on the other hand has taken precisely the opposite measures. To read what the North Korean regime has in mind we have to think of the situation not as a motionless snapshot but as a moving footage. Furthermore, South Korea must do more than just respond to North Korea’s actions. Instead it should focus on making strategically preemptive moves. For this, it is necessary to examine why the North Korean regime expanded the pendulum’s amplitude and find measures to make the leadership pursue a survival strategy that does not include huddling around nuclear weapons.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Diplomacy, Military Strategy, Alliance, and Conflict
Political Geography:
China, Asia, South Korea, North Korea, North America, and United States of America