Given that, as CIA Director Porter Goss recently testified,"Beijing's military modernization and military buildup could tiltthe balance of power in the Taiwan Strait", the United States isinterested in credible deterrence. Secretary of State CondoleezzaRice suggested what amounted to a strategy of containment beforesetting out on her March trip to Asia. She observed: "There areseveral ways to deal with [China's build-up]. Perhaps the mostimportant is to recognize the United States has very strongalliances in the region that bring stability to the region at atime when the Chinese role is changing."

For this contingency, a reformed U.S.-Korean alliance mightbenefit Washington. And the Bush Administration almost certainly isgoing to raise the issue. After all, Washington has been pressingAmerica's other friends to carefully consider what they would do ifwar comes to the Taiwan Strait. But the response has beenmixed.

Singapore Prime Minster Lee Hsein Loong returned from a visit toTaiwan in August 2004 warning Taiwan against any move towardindependence and raising serious doubts that his nation wouldactively back Washington in a confrontation with China. Australia,along with Great Britain America's strongest backer in Iraq, alsohas stepped back from U.S. support for Taiwan. Last fall, ForeignMinister Alexander Downer warned Washington not to take Australiansupport for granted. And Canberra was no more willing to backAmerica in the aftermath of Beijing's approval of itsanti-secession law. China pointedly suggested that Australia ensurethat its military relationship with the United States not encompassthe Taiwan question. Downer responded that while Canberra wouldhave to consult with America in the event of a conflict, "that is avery different thing from saying that we would make a decision togo to war."

Only Japan, in the midst of worsening relations with China andan obvious rethink of its relatively pacifist military stance inthe face of North Korean saber-rattling, seems inclined to back theUnited States in the event of a crisis in the Taiwan Strait. Inrecent security guidelines, Tokyo took the unprecedented step ofcalling Taiwan a mutual security concern. Tokyo might well flinchif war approached, but so far the Koizumi government has proved tobe increasingly tough with both China and North Korea.

Japan's stance has raised expectations regarding South Korea.What would the ROK do? No official decision has been taken, butnews reports suggest substantial opposition within the governmentto expanding the alliance's reach, especially involving a conflictbetween China and Taiwan. The Korea Herald editorialized on March11 that unlike Japan, "Korea will certainly wish to avoid beingdrawn into" a Sino-American conflict over Taiwan.

To join the United States against China would turn Seoul into animplacable enemy of its permanent neighbor, one that possesses along memory and almost certainly will eventually become theregion's dominant power, irrespective of Washington's policies.This is why Korean analysts Woosang Kim and Taeho Kim have argued,"China's growing influence over and interdependence with SouthKorea amid the continuing rivalry between the U.S. and China couldwell make untenable the proposition that both countries can jointlycooperate to resolve a plateful of concrete policy issues andlonger-term questions on the peninsula."

Thus, Seoul faces a difficult decision. Several years ago,participants in a conference on U.S.-South Korean relationsobserved that "South Korea's balancing act between its alliancewith the United States and its cooperation with China could wellturn out to be the most prominent security challenge in the 21stcentury." More recently, some analysts suggest that the ROK'schoice is a more fundamental one, essentially between China and theUnited States. Reporting on a recent conference in Honolulu,Hawaii, Richard Halloran of the Washington Times wrote: "SouthKorea is fast approaching a critical decision whether to try torevive its troubled alliance with the United States or dissolvetheir joint security treaty, expel American forces from thepeninsula and seek an alliance with China."

This may be an overstatement, but Seoul need not expel Americantroops to have them leave. In early March, President Roh declared,"I clearly state that the U.S. forces in Korea should not beinvolved in disputes in Northeast Asia without our consent." Headded, "Our people will not get entangled in regional disputesagainst our will in the future." However reasonable that might befor South Korea, if America's troops in the South are not needed todefend the ROK and Seoul is unwilling to allow America to use thoseforces for any other security purposes, why should the UnitedStates keep any military units there?

Wrapping Up the Alliance

It should come as no surprise that the majority of SouthKoreans, who most obviously benefit from their defense free-ride,oppose proposals for America to withdraw its troops and end itssecurity guarantee. However, there are good reasons for SouthKoreans to be dissatisfied with the current relationship. The priceof the American guarantee is turning decisions about South Korea'sdefense over to Washington. For many decades, this was not a graveconcern for South Koreans, especially when it appeared that warwith the North was inevitable if the United States left thepeninsula. Today, however, peace on the Korean Peninsula ispossible apart from the Mutual Defense Treaty. Far more important,South Koreans are finding that they are much more risk averse thanthe United States--as represented by both the Clinton and George W.Bush Administrations--in terms of engaging in military adventuresin the region.

Moreover, objections from South Korea might not sway the UnitedStates from its chosen course. Attitudes toward the North nowdiverge widely. The reasons are complex, but many South Koreans, inparticular younger people, view North Koreans more as long-lostbrothers than long-time enemies. Hostility toward America also hasrisen, as the older generation, which remembers the United Statesfondly for having intervened to prevent North Korean conquest in1950, passes on. In contrast, young people are more likely to thinkof Washington's support for assorted military dictators. Finally,with Seoul barely 25 miles from the North Korean border, ROKleaders and citizens alike are acutely aware of their vulnerabilityin any conflict, even though the allies would ultimately prevail.South Koreans could not have been reassured when, in early 2004,Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Senator Richard G.Lugar (r-in) contended that the United States should "not rule outany options, including--as a last resort--the use of force" to dealwith North Korea or other regional threats. Even blunter wasSenator John McCain's (R-AZ) statement: "While they may risk theirpopulations, the United States will do whatever it must toguarantee the security of the American people. And spare us theusual lectures about American unilateralism. We would prefer thecompany of North Korea's neighbors, but we will make do without itif we must." So long as American forces are based in the South,Washington will seek to dominate and control the alliance. Realequality is simply impossible.

Seoul cannot escape being tied to U.S. policy, even if it triesto disassociate itself from Washington. Imagine the imposition ofsanctions, enforcement of a blockade or military strikes on theNorth--conducted by American forces located beyond South Korea'sborders and acting outside of South Korea's borders over theobjections of the ROK. North Korea is unlikely to distinguish thepositions of the two members of the Mutual Defense Pact and islikely to view the South as an appropriate target ofretaliation.

Other dangers also await the South if it continues to tie itselfto American defense policy. The most important future internationalrelationship may well be that between the United States and China.Can Beijing peacefully assert itself on the East Asian and globalstage, and can the United States accommodate itself to a moreinfluential China? Is the ROK willing to risk its survival as aprosperous and independent nation by getting in between those twopowers? This is why the relationship between the United States andSouth Korea must change.

There is much the United States and ROK can do in the comingyears to cooperate to encourage South Korean and regional security.The SPI talks should focus on refashioning the relationship to fittoday's dramatically new security environment. Most important, theyshould begin with the presumption that Seoul will begin taking overresponsibility for its own defense. Rather than maintaining aformal commitment to defend the South from North Korea (or China,for that matter), Washington should pursue more limited forms ofdefense cooperation advantageous to both sides. Cooperation onmissile defense would be one such step. Another would be jointnaval training and maneuvers to prepare for future contingencies,such as seizure of illicit North Korean weapons shipments.Arrangements also should be made for emergency base access, shouldAmerican support be needed to thwart a serious hegemonic threatbeyond the capacity of friendly regional states to contain.

In 1971, Prime Minister Kim Jong-pil responded to the NixonAdministration's partial withdrawal by stating: "Now is no time tosurvive by depending on others--U.S. troops in our country will gohome sooner or later, which means that we must defend our countrythrough our own strength." Surely that time is now, thereby freeingthe American people from a commitment that costs far more than itis worth, absorbs valuable military resources, and keeps the Koreanpeople in a dependent relationship that insults their nationhoodand puts their destiny in another country's hands. Only then canSouth Korea and the United States decide on the contours of futuremilitary cooperation that will serve both nations.

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