By Leon Whyte
The alliance is about more than just deterring Pyongyang.
This is the third article in a series on the U.S. alliance with South Korea. Parts I and II can be found here and here.
The first priority of the U.S. alliance is to deter North Korea from invading South Korea again. The second priority of the alliance is less advertised and less known; it is to restrain South Korea from provoking a war with North Korea. This trend dates back to the founding of the ROK, before the Korean War and the beginning of the modern alliance. Despite providing support for Syngman Rhee, the first elected president of the ROK, the United States was uncomfortable with many of his policies and worried about his interest in unifying the Korean peninsula through force. The United States had good reason for worry; before the Korean War Rhee had overseen several border skirmishes with North Korea, some of which involved large-scale fighting between the opposing sides. The desire to prevent Rhee from carrying out his stated reunification intentions was at least partially responsible for the United States supplying far less military equipment to the ROK than the USSR did to the DPRK.
One mechanism that the United States designed and maintained from the start of the alliance to prevent unilateral ROK action was operational control (OPCON) of the South Korean forces. This has a practical, war fighting purpose, of making coalition battles easier to plan and fight between the two allies, but it was also intended to prevent the ROK from taking unilateral military action. To underscore this point, the United States made it clear to Rhee that if he engaged in unilateral military action against North Korea it would be unsupported by UN command troops or assets. The United States would not provide any support, material or otherwise, for the operation, and that U.S. economic aid would cease immediately. This pattern of restraint has continued since the formation of the alliance, and has created tensions between the two allies and undermined ROK ability to deter North Korea provocations. However, the policy has been successful in preventing another wide-scale conflict that would risk drawing the United States into another Korean war.
Read the full story at The Diplomat