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| Image: Flickr User - Ash Carter |
By Daniel A. Pinkston and Clint Work
Where does the alliance stand after the South Korean president’s recent visit?
South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s trip to Washington, D.C. and the summit with U.S. President Barrack Obama have generally received positive reviews. Some analysts were particularly effusive in describing the summit and relationship, but we feel that some of the exaggerated praise is unwarranted and misleading. As Stephen Haggard has noted, the summit reaffirmed many aspects of the bilateral relationship, but nothing exceptional transpired. During Park’s speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Park said that during her tenure as president, the U.S. and the ROK have resolved all of their pending sensitive bilateral issues. Many analysts and government officials argue that the alliance is stronger than ever. However, those who expected Obama and Park to adopt new and bold policy initiatives to resolve the inter-Korean stalemate and the North Korean nuclear issue are very disappointed. For example, the South Korean main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD) criticized Park, asserting that the summit “didn’t achieve anything and they should have provided more creative suggestions for resolving the DPRK nuclear issue.”
With the aim of providing more in-depth analysis of the ROK-U.S. alliance, this article is the first in a series to do more than just celebrate bilateral achievements, which we acknowledge are extraordinary and generally quite positive. We do not advocate dissolution of the alliance with no alternative East Asian security architecture. However, no alliance is prefect, since every alliance is subject to the tensions that arise over fears of abandonment and fears of entrapment. We hope that a critical review of alliance and the sources of tensions is the first step in maintaining alliance cohesion to ensure that common interests and values are well served.
Read the full story at The Diplomat