While I agree with Minji, I would also like to point out that the Koreans and Japanses must realize that Mutual Defense Treaties go both ways.

Well, I’m not sure if recent defense agreements with Japan have changed this any, but Japan’s defense treaty with the United States did NOT go both ways. It was, practically speaking, a protectorate treaty. It was not a “mutual” defense pact: it was understood that due to Article 9, Japan was unable to provide military support to the United States outside of Japanese territory. Which made sense at the time, of course, but perhaps anachronistic now. See Wikipedia’s entry on the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan.

The U.S. treaty with Korea, on the other hand, is a full-fledged mutual defense pact.

And I love Jing’s avatar.

For Japan, a regional power with ambitions for greater influence (as is the case with China), their security concerns do not lie solely with North Korea. They have legitimate concerns regarding China’s military modernization and potential for non-state actors to bloom on South-East Asian waters stretching from the Philippines to Burma. Such concerns must be addressed by the possession of a competent armed forces (a navy, really) that can reach into areas far away from the Japanese islands. Japan has more or less had such a navy since the cold war years, not to mention Asia’s most superior air force. Their only noticeable weakness has been their ground forces, or the JGSDF, which have yet to grow to a size commensurate with Japan’s desires to take part in, say, US- or UN-led peace operations.

Certainly, North Korea is a concern. But, to blame South Korea for North Korean misbehavior is questionable. Pyongyang has always ignored Seoul which isn’t even recognized as a proper government by North Korea. When Seoul gave aid, Pyongyang took it while posing for the cameras and with intentions to possibly poison the democratic politics in the South by injecting propaganda via alleged advances made in North-South relations that Seoul promoted to the public as well. China has given more and invested far more into North Korea than South Korea. And as Pyongyang has reiterated itself in the past, it wants to deal with great powers (e.g. US, China), not Seoul. Seoul never had great influence over Pyongyang.

Also, as much as the Roh administration deserves certain criticisms over its handling of the US-ROK alliance in the public sphere, the fraying of Seoul-Washington relations really began when Bush replaced Clinton. I’m not saying this is Bush’s fault or Roh’s fault. Under the two leaders, the two allied governments have done their share in contributing to the alliance. However, it is the widened ideological gap between the two capitals that has resulted in great alarm, and the diplomatic amateurism exhibited by Seoul’s juvenile cadre in the Blue House (they did enable the base relocation to Pyongtaek and deployed third-largest number of troops to Iraq, but you don’t tell your public, “we’re finally standing up to America (an ally)!”). Certainly, there are possibilities such a gap may lessen noticeably following the 2007 presidential elections in Seoul and the 2008 elections in the US, and that Seoul will handle their foreign affairs with greater sophistication and maturity.

The US-ROK alliance is important for both countries, especially in the age of a rising China. And before shoveling the alliance into the waste bin of history, especially for Americans who think “South Korea is ungrateful” (and I disagree with this assertion), it is important to note South Korea is increasingly more capable to provide more militarily to the alliance as its wealth and military capabilities grow over the coming decades.

After all, why is it that US and Britain are looking to invite South Korea to join a global NATO, along with only Japan and Australia? As Europe’s military expenditures and power projection capabilities see little increase (if not decrease) while their reluctance for overseas deployment only grow, only the likes of South Korea and Japan that may very well fill the void. And such are the rumored reasons why the two North-East Asian countries are being considered as potential members of an alliance that is Atlantic in nature (and it’s NATO who’s inquiring, not Seoul or Tokyo). And it should also be noted that, as far as I know, South Korea and US have not seen great friction in the post-cold war world when it comes to foreign policy in other parts of the globe outside North Korea. South Korea has the potential to contribute, and they’ve already been paving way to build up and train thousands of soldiers exclusively for overseas development for missions in developing countries. Such operations help create opportunities to expand on international trade, something South Korea has been quite dependent on. Expanding the size of the international market should only be welcome news to policy makers in Seoul, regardless of what the anti-liberal activist ilk say. One of the best opportunities to do this is through peace/stability operations. Such advances should undoubtedly benefit the US as well.

However, questions remain as to how South Korea will react to an increasingly robust China. Observers should note a major motivation behind South Korea’s anti-American sentiment is many South Koreans’ allergy toward great powers in general. There is little reason to believe China will not fall victim to this type of thinking in the future. After all, American influence in Korea has been 60 years old, Japan’s lasted 35 years. However, China’s grip on Korean affairs lasted far longer for centuries. Many South Koreans are well aware of this, and such rhetoric can very well light up an anti-Chinese sentiment. Time may be the only thing standing in the way.

Washington and Seoul should exercise greater patience. As much as the alliance doesn’t appear great right now from both sides of the Pacific, there are large fish to fry over the coming decades that the US-ROK/US-Japan bilateral alliances, or hopefully a US-ROK-Japan trilateral alliance, could achieve. As the younger generation of South Koreans take over (and they’re not all anti-globalization, anti-US) and the South Korean economy reaches greater heights on the international stage, it may not solely be the memory of the Korean War and security calculations that bond US and South Korea, but common interests aborad. Be patient.

Unless it is being done for the economic reasons mentioned above(fear of theft of technology)

I didn’t mean to suggest that it’s being done only because of the “economic” considerations, as the writer so politely puts it. In fact, it’s also being done because there has been a rolling breakdown in trust in the Korean military, and because the US wants to send an unmistakable signal of its displeasure with the buffoons/ideologues currently in office here. Again, however, even supposing some turn-about in regards to the latter considerations, it’s highly unlikely that the sorts of security considerations that in the past might have trumped concerns about technology theft and lack of confidence in one’s putative ally will result in Korea ever directly getting anything remotely resembling US first order military hardware, except small stuff.