1. US-Korea Relations: Everything Everywhere All At Once, Extremely Close and Incredibly Loud
- Author:
- Mason Richey and Rob York
- Publication Date:
- 01-2023
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Comparative Connections
- Institution:
- Pacific Forum
- Abstract:
- Continuing a trend from the May-August reporting period, the final reporting period of 2022 in US-Korea relations was marked by an accelerated ratcheting up of tension. In short, numerous problems reared up on the Korean Peninsula from September-December, and good solutions have been few. And not only does this describe relations between the US and North Korea, but in their own, friendly way also the situation between Washington and Seoul, whose frequent invocations of rock-solid alliance cooperation belie unease about crucial areas of partnership. Two critical issues have been increasingly affecting the US-South Korea alliance in 2022, with the September-December period no exception. First, South Korea desires ever more alliance-partner defense and security reassurance from the US in the face of a growing North Korean nuclear threat and Chinese revisionism. Yet the US has downward-trending limits on credible reassurance as North Korea masters nuclear weapons technology that threatens US extended nuclear deterrence for South Korea. The US also faces less geopolitical pressure to effusively reassure its Indo-Pacific allies—including South Korea—as China grows to menace the regional order and the US consequently faces lower risk of ally hedging or realignment.
- Topic:
- Security, Nuclear Weapons, Bilateral Relations, Alliance, and Military
- Political Geography:
- Asia, South Korea, North Korea, and United States of America