Realism, liberalism, and the durability of the U.S.-South Korean alliance

Asian Survey

Volumn 37, Issue 7, 1997, Pages 609-621

  Cha, Victor ^a  

^a GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0040168607     PISSN: 00044687     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/2645511     Document Type: Article

References (28)

1. John Mearsheimer, "The False Promise of International Institutions," International Security, 19:3 (Winter 1994-95), p. 9.
2. For some recent representative work in this vein, see Robert Keohane and Lisa Martin, "The Promise of Institutionalist Theory," International Security, no. 20 (Summer 1995); Michael Brown, Sean Lynn-Jones, and Steven Miller, eds., Debating the Democratic Peace (Cambridge, Mass.: MTT Press, 1996); and Robert Keohane, After Hegemony (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984).
3. For some recent representative work in this vein, see Robert Keohane and Lisa Martin, "The Promise of Institutionalist Theory," International Security, no. 20 (Summer 1995); Michael Brown, Sean Lynn-Jones, and Steven Miller, eds., Debating the Democratic Peace (Cambridge, Mass.: MTT Press, 1996); and Robert Keohane, After Hegemony (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984).
4. For some recent representative work in this vein, see Robert Keohane and Lisa Martin, "The Promise of Institutionalist Theory," International Security, no. 20 (Summer 1995); Michael Brown, Sean Lynn-Jones, and Steven Miller, eds., Debating the Democratic Peace (Cambridge, Mass.: MTT Press, 1996); and Robert Keohane, After Hegemony (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984).
5. Other issues that the U.S.-ROK alliance faces in the post-Cold War era pertain to mechanics of the alliance, including reversion to Korean hands of the joint command structure and revision of the status-of-forces agreement, and still others involve ROK desires to expand its military capabilities beyond the confines of the alliance, which include issues such as third country arms transfers and ROK demands for upgrades in missile technology. However, these are mostly side-issues that modify certain aspects of the alliance; I chose the AF because it touches most directly on issues of alliance commitment, resiliency, and effectiveness in the face of an adversary.
6. Robert Manning, "The U.S., ROK, and North Korea: Anatomy of a Muddle," October 1995, obtained via Internet: Nautilus Institute , p. 2. Also see Robert Scalapino, "North Korea at a Crossroads," Essays in Public Policy, no. 73 (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution, 1997).
7. Robert Manning, "The U.S., ROK, and North Korea: Anatomy of a Muddle," October 1995, obtained via Internet: Nautilus Institute , p. 2. Also see Robert Scalapino, "North Korea at a Crossroads," Essays in Public Policy, no. 73 (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution, 1997).
8. Patrick Morgan, "The U.S.-ROK Strategic Relationship: A Liberalist Analysis," in Donald Clark et al., U.S.-Korean Relations (Claremont, Calif.: Keck Center, 1995). Morgan is the first to introduce this framework of analysis to U.S.-ROK relations, and much of the argument here is inspired by his work. In a larger project from which the U.S.-ROK case study is drawn, I consider security conceptions in the broader literature on alliance theory and also test the argument in the cases of the U.S.-Japan and NATO alliances (see Victor Cha, "Alliance Termination in Asia: Is the Thrill Gone?" paper presented at the 92nd annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco, August 29-September 1, 1996).
9. Patrick Morgan, "The U.S.-ROK Strategic Relationship: A Liberalist Analysis," in Donald Clark et al., U.S.-Korean Relations (Claremont, Calif.: Keck Center, 1995). Morgan is the first to introduce this framework of analysis to U.S.-ROK relations, and much of the argument here is inspired by his work. In a larger project from which the U.S.-ROK case study is drawn, I consider security conceptions in the broader literature on alliance theory and also test the argument in the cases of the U.S.-Japan and NATO alliances (see Victor Cha, "Alliance Termination in Asia: Is the Thrill Gone?" paper presented at the 92nd annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco, August 29-September 1, 1996).
10. In January 1968 and April 1969, North Korea undertook a series of provocative actions against the U.S.-ROK alliance. The first of these was an attempted commando raid on the presidential residence, followed two days later by the unwarranted seizure of a U.S. intelligence ship, the USS Pueblo, operating in international waters. The following April, the North Koreans shot down a U.S. reconnaissance plane, again in international airspace. The Park regime vehemently demanded U.S. armed action against the North, as it saw these provocations as probes by Pyongyang to test Washington's defense commitment. Much to the consternation of Seoul, the Johnson and Nixon administrations opted against armed countermeasures, largely as a result of the desire to avoid entanglement in a second front on the Asian mainland (in addition to Indochina). In 1970-71, as part of Nixon's "Asia for Asians" doctrine, the U.S. also announced the deactivation of the 7th Infantry Division from Korea. Numbering approximately 20,000, this was the single largest retrenchment of American forces since the Korean War, and it elicited strong opposition and trepidations in Seoul.
11. In this sense, Morgan correctly notes that the Cold War years were a time of departure form the traditional liberalist U.S. conception of security. In addition to the points mentioned above, these traits included a general aversion to the use of force (as the sole instrument of coercion), multilateralism, shared values, and the development of interdependent communities. The realist conception of security was applied more to alliances in the Asian than the European theater. (Morgan, "The U.S.-ROK Strategic Relationship," pp. 85-87.)
12. Donald Zagoria, "The United States and the Asia-pacific Region in the Post-Cold War Era," in Robert Ross, ed., East Asia in Transition (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1995), p. 160.
13. Lord statement before Subcommittee on Asia and Pacific Affairs, House International Relations Committee, February 9, 1995, reprinted in Dispatch 6:9, February 27, 1995; and John Shattuck, "Address to die Asia Foundation's Center for Asian Pacific Affairs, June 28, 1994," Dispatch 5:29, July 18, 1994. An eloquent essay strongly reflecting the American liberalist inclination regarding security is by Strobe Talbott, "Democracy and the National Interest," Foreign Affairs 75:6 (November/December 1996).
14. Lord statement before Subcommittee on Asia and Pacific Affairs, House International Relations Committee, February 9, 1995, reprinted in Dispatch 6:9, February 27, 1995; and John Shattuck, "Address to die Asia Foundation's Center for Asian Pacific Affairs, June 28, 1994," Dispatch 5:29, July 18, 1994. An eloquent essay strongly reflecting the American liberalist inclination regarding security is by Strobe Talbott, "Democracy and the National Interest," Foreign Affairs 75:6 (November/December 1996).
15. Lord statement before Subcommittee on Asia and Pacific Affairs, House International Relations Committee, February 9, 1995, reprinted in Dispatch 6:9, February 27, 1995; and John Shattuck, "Address to die Asia Foundation's Center for Asian Pacific Affairs, June 28, 1994," Dispatch 5:29, July 18, 1994. An eloquent essay strongly reflecting the American liberalist inclination regarding security is by Strobe Talbott, "Democracy and the National Interest," Foreign Affairs 75:6 (November/December 1996).
16. Robert Lieber, "Eagle Without a Cause: Making Foreign Policy Without the Soviet Threat," in Lieber, ed., Eagle Adrift: American Foreign Policy at the End of the Century (New York: Longman, 1997), pp. 5, 10.
17. Morgan, "The U.S.-ROK Strategic Relationship," p. 99.
18. Its fate has been largely the same as the 1972 joint communiqué - a reaction to larger regional changes (i.e., détente, and the post-Cold War) - that produced no reduction in tensions on the peninsula.
19. Morgan, "The U.S.-ROK Strategic Relationship," p. 98.
20. Kim Young Sam's address before the National Assembly, reprinted in Korea Herald, October 17, 1995; for the engagement assurances, see Kim's, August 15, 1996, National Liberation Day speech, as cited in Chung-in Moon, "Peace and Arms Control on the Korean Peninsula: A Search for Alternatives," Korea Focus 4:5 (September-October 1996), p. 6; and for the containment statements, see Lee Hong-koo's speech to the National Assembly, as cited in Joongang Ilbo, October 23, 1996.
21. Kim Young Sam's address before the National Assembly, reprinted in Korea Herald, October 17, 1995; for the engagement assurances, see Kim's, August 15, 1996, National Liberation Day speech, as cited in Chung-in Moon, "Peace and Arms Control on the Korean Peninsula: A Search for Alternatives," Korea Focus 4:5 (September-October 1996), p. 6; and for the containment statements, see Lee Hong-koo's speech to the National Assembly, as cited in Joongang Ilbo, October 23, 1996.
22. Kim Young Sam's address before the National Assembly, reprinted in Korea Herald, October 17, 1995; for the engagement assurances, see Kim's, August 15, 1996, National Liberation Day speech, as cited in Chung-in Moon, "Peace and Arms Control on the Korean Peninsula: A Search for Alternatives," Korea Focus 4:5 (September-October 1996), p. 6; and for the containment statements, see Lee Hong-koo's speech to the National Assembly, as cited in Joongang Ilbo, October 23, 1996.
23. Although U.S. intelligence was aware of the North's clandestine drive to develop atomic weapons since the early 1970s, it was not until 1989 that it began expressing concerns that the regime might be capable of producing a bomb. What followed from 1992 were two years of tense on-again, off-again negotiations between North Korea and the U.N. and the U.S. in which the North resisted International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections, reneged on Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) obligations, and defied U.S. and U.N. threats to impose economic sanctions. Events came to a head in April 1994, when Pyongyang removed 8,000 spent fuel rods from its five-megawatt reactor in Yongbyon and refused to segregate rods that held evidence of its plutonium reprocessing history. The U.S. began consultations with Seoul and Tokyo to pursue sanctions, and plans were laid for the movement of minesweepers and amphibious vessels from Hawaii to the region. In what was most likely the final effort at negotiation, President Clinton approved a "private" mission to Pyongyang by former President Jimmy Carter who brought back proposals for a freeze on the North's nuclear activities in exchange for a new round of U.S.-North Korea talks and a summit between the two Koreas. A period of uncertainty followed after the death of Kim II Sung in July 1994, but U.S.-North Korean talks resumed between Assistant Secretary Robert Gallucci and Vice-Minister Kang Sok-ju, ultimately leading to the October 1994 AF. For analyses, see Michael Mazarr, "Going Just a Little Nuclear Nonproliferation Lessons from North Korea," International Security 20:2 (Fall 1995), pp. 92-122; and Victor Cha, The Geneva Framework Agreement and Korea's Future, EAI Reports, East Asian Institute, Columbia University, June 1995.
24. Although U.S. intelligence was aware of the North's clandestine drive to develop atomic weapons since the early 1970s, it was not until 1989 that it began expressing concerns that the regime might be capable of producing a bomb. What followed from 1992 were two years of tense on-again, off-again negotiations between North Korea and the U.N. and the U.S. in which the North resisted International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections, reneged on Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) obligations, and defied U.S. and U.N. threats to impose economic sanctions. Events came to a head in April 1994, when Pyongyang removed 8,000 spent fuel rods from its five-megawatt reactor in Yongbyon and refused to segregate rods that held evidence of its plutonium reprocessing history. The U.S. began consultations with Seoul and Tokyo to pursue sanctions, and plans were laid for the movement of minesweepers and amphibious vessels from Hawaii to the region. In what was most likely the final effort at negotiation, President Clinton approved a "private" mission to Pyongyang by former President Jimmy Carter who brought back proposals for a freeze on the North's nuclear activities in exchange for a new round of U.S.-North Korea talks and a summit between the two Koreas. A period of uncertainty followed after the death of Kim II Sung in July 1994, but U.S.-North Korean talks resumed between Assistant Secretary Robert Gallucci and Vice-Minister Kang Sok-ju, ultimately leading to the October 1994 AF. For analyses, see Michael Mazarr, "Going Just a Little Nuclear Nonproliferation Lessons from North Korea," International Security 20:2 (Fall 1995), pp. 92-122; and Victor Cha, The Geneva Framework Agreement and Korea's Future, EAI Reports, East Asian Institute, Columbia University, June 1995.
25. For a similar observation with regard to U.S. policy in not only North Korea but also China and Vietnam, see Scalapino, "North Korea at a Crossroads," p. 10.
26. Robert Gallucci, personal interview, May 1996, Seoul.
27. The AF only stipulates that this is to occur sometime after the relaxation of trade and telecommunications barriers in January 1995.
28. For the argument that any information gathered from access to these sites may in fact be inconclusive, see Victor Gililnsky and Henry Sokolski, "Kdorea: How Long Do We Live with Blackmail," Washington Post, March 27, 1997.