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The Emerging Post-Cold War Era: An American View
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17542 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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7 / 1990 |
2,409 Words |
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Ed Olsen
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Korea's involvement in the Cold War has been extensive. The post-World War II division of the Korean nation, the creation of two Korean states as protégés of rival superpowers, and the Korean War collectively define the Cold War. The Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) embodied for Asia much of what the Berlin Wall represented in Europe - a graphic symbol of dangerous tensions that threatened to engulf the world in a calamitous war. Now that antagonisms in the European theater of the Cold War are rapidly diminishing, marked by the virtual collapse of the Warsaw Pact and serious rethinking of NATO's purposes, the Korean situation increasingly seems like a fossil of a bygone era.
South Korean, American, Japanese leaders often assert that their people should not be lulled by events in Europe into believing that peace is about to break out in East Asia too. Some say such arguments enable those three countries to maintain their security commitments. And the supporting evidence is fairly persuasive. Soviet armed forces in Asia have not yet scaled back to the extent they have in Europe. Though some see signs that Gorbachev's prospective visit to Tokyo in 1991 may foster enough momentum to generate movement on the long-standing "Northern Territories" issue and precipitate a meaningful expansion of bilateral trade and investment, for the time being serious tensions persist between Moscow and Tokyo. A Cold War thaw has not immediately spread to that quarter. Perhaps most importantly, there is little evidence that North Korea's threat to South Korea is diminishing. Despite the Republic of Korea's (ROK) enhanced defense capabilities and economic might relative to the North, Seoul legitimately perceives a threat. Moreover, it wants a continued American commitment to cope with that danger. In many ways South Korea acts as though the Cold War has not ended.
Seoul's response to these prevailing tensions, particularly its policies vis-à-vis Washington and Moscow, warrant closer examination. U.S.-South Korea relations were born and shaped amid the Cold War. Many officials and scholars on both sides identify with that background and seem to have difficulty framing the relationship in any other context. Consequently there is a strong predisposition to perpetuate the atmospherics to which both sides are accustomed. This is as true in Cold War-related security concerns as it has been for broader political, economic, and cultural matters. However, just as those policy areas have rapidly evolved as parts of a maturing U.S.-South Korean network of relations, so too are security issues being influenced by several processes of maturation.
Of greatest relevance to South Korea are its economic capabilities over the past two decades, capabilities that have bolstered national defenses as well as South Korean self-confidence. In short, it is increasingly difficult for Seoul to persuade Americans that the ROK needs continued U.S. support. This has led to a variety of proposals for U.S. realignment, ranging from the relatively moderate Department of Defense responses to its mandate from the Congress to reassess the U.S. force posture in Korea (commonly known as the Nunn-Warner report). Meanwhile, additional and more thorough cuts have been recommended by the CATO Institute's Dough Bandow, while a variety of intermediate views are heard from the U.S. Congress.
Even the Cold War itself has been maturing. This issue has been covered widely elsewhere and need not be recapitulated here, but it is important to note its
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