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Asia Times
3 days ago
- Politics
- Asia Times
US-Korea alliance to change under Lee Jae-myung
This article, originally published by Pacific Forum, is republished with permission. The June 3 victory of Democratic Party of Korea (DP) presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung provides South Korea with an opportunity to turn the page on six months of political dysfunction. At its core, the election was a referendum on former President Yoon Suk Yeol as well as the People Power Party (PPP), a segment of which tried to justify Yoon's failed attempt at martial law last December. While foreign policy issues played only a small role during the snap election, the emergence of a new South Korean government has the potential to impact the US-South Korea alliance in a number of ways. Although the alliance will certainly remain intact, Washington and Seoul won't be as in sync as they were during Yoon's tenure. Yoon was an increasingly unpopular politician in the eyes of the South Korean public even before he sought to upend South Korea's constitutional order. In April 2024, the PPP experienced a humbling defeat in legislative elections, which handed the opposition DP control of the National Assembly and effectively turned Yoon into a lame duck. In September 2024, three months before his martial law bid, Yoon's public approval rating was at 20%, the lowest of his presidency. Washington's perception of Yoon, though, was far different. The Biden administration frequently described the South Korean president as a valuable ally lauded for his cooperation on regional security matters, deterrence on the Korean Peninsula and, ironically, democratic bona fides. In March 2024, South Korea hosted the third US-organized Summit for Democracy, where Yoon was showered with praise for leading a nation that only a few decades before had still been in the throes of a military-led dictatorship. The general perception in US policy circles was that the Yoon administration was a force multiplier for what the United States sought to accomplish in the region and a partner who could be relied upon to keep US preferences front-of-mind. It was Yoon's policy on Japan that was most appreciated in Washington. In August 2022, months after being elected by a razor-thin margin, Yoon promised to reform South Korea-Japan bilateral relations after several years of acrimony over World War II-era historical disputes and trade restrictions. Whereas former South Korean President Moon Jae-in referred to Japan in derisive terms, Yoon began talking about the country as 'a partner' with shared security interests. Yoon's commitment to resolving historical disputes with Tokyo led to a wider-ranging reconciliation; in March 2023, South Korea and Japan normalized an intelligence sharing agreement that Yoon's predecessor, Moon, backed away from. Later that year, in August 2023, Presidents Biden and Yoon and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida pledged mutually beneficial cooperation in the fields of security, intelligence and technology. For the United States, Yoon's diplomatic initiative took considerable political courage to pull off and its success played into the Biden administration's goal of creating a constellation of 'minilateral' frameworks throughout the Indo-Pacific theater. To the extent Lee has a foreign policy doctrine, he keeps it close to his chest. As an opposition legislator, he flirted with traditional DP-aligned views of the US-South Korea alliance, which tended to emphasize greater South Korean autonomy and a more equitable defense relationship with Washington. During his first presidential campaign in 2021, Lee was chillier on relations with Tokyo. While he said he would try to improve the relationship, he stressed that a sincere and heartfelt apology from the Japanese over the forced labor issue was a requirement. In perhaps one of his most controversial comments at that time, Lee alleged in 2021 that the United States collaborated with pro-Japanese forces after World War II to form the modern-day Republic of Korea – remarks that sparked significant blowback. Yet in the four years since, Lee's foreign policy views have moved farther toward the center. Whether this was a campaign strategy to attract moderate voters or a true paradigm change is still unknown. Either way, Lee's favorite word these days is 'pragmatic.' Throughout this latest election cycle, he has made a concerted effort to depict himself as somebody who isn't ideological and whose aims include balancing Seoul's various foreign relationships. As if to underscore his pro-American credentials. Lee gave a TIME magazine interview, in part to allay whatever fears had emerged about his past positions. In it, he described Seoul's military alliance with the United States as not only a fundamental component of South Korean foreign policy but also a crucial node in maintaining a stable balance of power in the region. At the same time, Lee doesn't hold much animosity toward China. Whereas the Trump administration is currently in the midst of a systemic rivalry with Beijing across multiple domains, South Korea under a Lee presidency will seek to preserve whatever flexibility and operating space Seoul has between the two superpowers. Although South Korean public opinion has soured on China lately, South Korean policymakers can't afford to alienate the Chinese by enabling Washington's containment policy against Beijing. After all, China is still South Korea's largest trading partner, and the memory of the 2016-2017 THAAD incident, when Beijing slapped regulatory restrictions and tourism bans on Seoul in retaliation in retaliation for hosting a US missile defense system, is never far from the mind. Lee will face a difficult juggling act between improving relations with China on the one hand and bolstering relations with Washington on the other – the very scenario US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned against during his speech at the Shangri-La security conference last week. Finally, Seoul's policy on North Korea is likely to change as well. Unlike Yoon, who took a hard line on Pyongyang by scrapping the 2018 inter-Korean military de-escalation accord, resuming loudspeaker broadcasts across the DMZ and treating North Korean denuclearization as a prerequisite for positive relations with the South, Lee is bound to follow the traditional DP-aligned platform. The resumption of military-to-military hotlines and other communication channels between the two Koreas has already been broached, including during Lee's inauguration speech, and it wouldn't be a surprise if the new South Korean administration sought to negotiate a mutual return to the inter-Korean de-escalation accord. In the grand scheme, however, the success of Lee's North Korea policy hinges on the willingness of Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump to buy into it. If there is one long-term challenge that could cause the most friction between the United States and South Korea, it's 'strategic flexibility,' or the notion that US forces stationed in South Korea may be deployed to a contingency that has nothing to do with the Korean Peninsula. This is not a new dilemma in the US-South Korea alliance. During the George W. Bush administration, the two sides tried to address the issue by coming to an understanding that Seoul 'respects the necessity of strategic flexibility' of US troops in South Korea and Washington 'respects the ROK position' that it won't be involved in a regional conflict that the Korean public doesn't support. But as US-China competition rises, US officials have become increasingly supportive of the concept. Before he was confirmed as undersecretary of defense for policy, Eldridge Colby argued that South Korea needed to take the primary role for its conventional defense against North Korea, as the roughly 28,000 US troops under US Forces Korea (USFK) might need to be redeployed to deal with a potential Taiwan conflict scenario. USFK Commander General Xavier Brunson reiterated this point on May 29: 'To maintain peace through strength, we sometimes have to move to other areas.' He went on to state that while USFK is historically tasked with defending South Korea and preserving stability on the Korean Peninsula more broadly, the resources assigned to the command can also be made available throughout the Indo-Pacific as needed. Although the USFK's refocusing its attention to a contingency in the South China Sea or the Taiwan Strait remains a hypothetical, the very possibility causes nerves to fray in Seoul. The concern won't go away anytime soon and may even increase now that Lee is in power. Based on his public statements during the campaign, Lee wants nothing to do with a war over Taiwan and would prefer to maintain positive relations with Beijing and Taipei simultaneously. The Trump and Lee administrations will have to come to a more detailed consensus on the issue or risk a degradation of the alliance in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan becomes a reality. Elections have consequences. A changing of the guard will inevitably bring policy change in specific areas pertaining to security and geopolitical alignment. Still, the US-South Korea alliance, now in its 72nd year, will persist. Daniel R. DePetris ( is a fellow at Defense Priorities .
Asia Times
11-03-2025
- Politics
- Asia Times
History shows US security guarantees seldom last
Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, argues that any US-organized peace agreement would have to be accompanied by 'security guarantees' from the US to prevent Russia from resuming its offensive in the future. However, Donald Trump has so far said the US will not commit to sending troops to Ukraine if Russia doesn't stand by any such deal. Another way of assuring a security guarantee would be for Ukraine to be allowed to join Nato. As a Nato member, Ukraine would be protected by Article 5 which states that if one member is attacked, others will come to its aid. But Trump has also ruled out this option. The US president claims the proposed US-Ukraine minerals deal will compensate the US for its expenditure in support of Ukraine to date, and that the associated presence of US personnel on Ukrainian territory will deter Russia from a fresh invasion. Yet for such a guarantee to be effective, Russia must believe in it. This seems unlikely given that in the last few weeks, Trump has appeared to blame Zelensky for the invasion of his own territory, called him 'a dictator' for not holding elections in wartime, and insisted that Vladimir Putin wants peace while Zelensky does not. But have US security guarantees worked in the past to provide the protection that Zelensky is looking for? The history of this kind of protection deal is worth interrogating for answers. After years of involvement by US forces in the Vietnam war (1965-1975), the 1973 Paris Peace Accords allowed President Richard Nixon to present himself as a peacemaker in a conflict which most Americans had come to see as unwinnable. The war had pitted South Vietnam and its US ally against communist North Vietnam, backed by China and Russia. The accords endangered South Vietnamese security by permitting North Vietnam's forces to remain on the south's territory after a ceasefire. The US said it would continue to provide adequate military support to permit South Vietnam to continue the struggle – and critically, Nixon promised the South Vietnamese president, Nguyen Van Thieu, that should the North Vietnamese communists mount another general offensive, the US would return to South Vietnam, with massive air power. But, when the communists launched their 1975 offensive, Nixon's guarantee proved worthless. Forced out of office by the Watergate scandal (which showed Republicans connected to Nixon's re-election campaign had raided offices of the Democratic National Committee), Nixon was succeeded by his vice-president, Gerald Ford, who announced on April 25 1975 that 'the Vietnam War is finished as far as America is concerned.' An ignominious withdrawal of the remnants of US support from the then capital of South Vietnam, Saigon, occurred a few days later, and the South Vietnamese were left to their fate. Like Zelensky, President Thieu protested these arrangements. On his resignation in 1975, he said: At the time, there was collusion between the communists and the United States with a view to reaching the agreement of 26 October 1972 … I had enough courage to tell Secretary of State Kissinger at the time … 'You want to sell the interests and lives of the South Vietnamese. As for me, a Vietnamese, I cannot do so.' However, Thieu had to accept these agreements for fear of the total withdrawal of US support – just as Zelensky, however intense his resistance, may also have to. More recently, the 2020 Doha agreement, negotiated between Trump's first administration and the Taliban, fulfilled the US president's desire to pull the US military out of Afghanistan. As in Vietnam and Ukraine, the US negotiated this agreement without the participation of its ally, the Afghan government. The Taliban promised not to support terrorist groups on Afghan territory, and to engage in intra-Afghan negotiations. But when the Taliban went back on the first of these conditions, the US did not halt the withdrawal of its forces. Reports suggest the Trump administration had undermined the morale of the Afghan army and telegraphed the date of US withdrawal from the country. The Taliban needed only to wait for Nato and US forces to start withdrawing in May 2021 before continuing its campaign to take back power. The US government clearly wanted to get out of Afghanistan whatever happened to its ally. By mid-August, the Afghan government had collapsed and the Taliban had retaken Kabul. When the Afghan armed forces collapsed, there were still Nato and US personnel in Kabul. Their chaotic withdrawal could then only occur with the permission of the Taliban. Drawing on this knowledge of what happened in Afghanistan, mood music from the Trump administration might suggest to Putin in 2025 that he need only bide his time until US rejection of its erstwhile ally renders Ukraine's defence untenable. National policies change, especially in democracies, and such changes have consequences. Since 1945, American presidents have understood themselves to be 'leaders of the free world'. But Trump sees this only as shorthand for foreign exploitation of American generosity, which is how he regards US expenditure in support of Ukraine. Under such circumstances, US allies might be less likely to rely on American promises and guarantees than they were in the 1970s during the Vietnam war. The history of US security guarantees in Vietnam and Afghanistan should give Zelensky, and all US allies, pause when considering their value this time around. Ian Horwood is senior lecturer in history, York St John University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
