The irony of Yoon Seok-yeol’s downfall is that, for all his domestic unpredictability and poor political judgment at home, he was far more stable in foreign policy, and had set South Korea on a path that understood new global realities. 

This may be why the martial law declaration so flummoxed South Korea’s allies and adversaries. The beginning and end of martial law were so quick that the U.S. and Japan didn’t have time to react much beyond sending thoughts prayers, and pronouncements that they were staying abreast of the situation. 

North Korea itself did not react for several days until it finally made a statement that decried Yoon’s unstable nature, and his dictatorial tendencies, and played up the mass opposition arrayed against him. It downplayed martial law itself, as North Korea has been under martial law essentially since its inception, and has not otherwise sought to take advantage of the situation.  

After his impeachment, Yoon’s powers have been suspended, but he is removed from office only if the Constitutional Court certifies the charges. Regardless of what the Court rules, Yoon’s days as president are numbered. Given the dysfunction of the People Power Party, Yoon will almost certainly be replaced by a leftist president. 

The opposition leader Lee Jae-myung is himself in a race to be elected before he runs out of appeals in his court cases and is rendered ineligible to be president. Whoever is elected president will have less domestic political maneuver room to make tough calls on South Korea’s foreign orientation. 

Inevitably, the new South Korean president will write a new foreign policy strategy. South Korea’s national security and foreign policy strategies are produced by the presidential office, not by the relevant ministries or by the government as a whole. 

As such, they are a statement of that president’s strategy, and are liable to change, sometimes drastically, whenever a new president comes into office. Some goals – an increase in defense exports, and better relations with Southeast Asia – have persisted across administrations for several years and will likely survive the transition to Yoon’s successor. Others may not. But the global and regional strategic environment has changed, and while Lee Jae-myung has said in the past he essentially wants to return to the status quo ante: a softer line with North Korea, moving further from Japan, a balanced relationship with China and the U.S., the tenets of South Korean leftist presidents’ traditional foreign policy goals sit uncomfortably with the new reality.  

A New Reality

Some of the damage to South Korea’s strategic position came about due to Yoon’s actions. Ironically, Yoon Seok-yeol’s foreign policy strategies leaned heavily into South Korea’s economic development and democratic governance as elements of its soft power, and in its pursuit of a “free and open Indo-Pacific.” 

The domestic reactions to Yoon’s declaration of martial law, the malicious compliance of the military, an impeachment move, and mass public demonstrations were predictable: near-instantaneous mass protests are practically South Korea’s national pastime. To an extent, the swift reaction showed the robustness of South Korean democracy, but the instability itself has dimmed South Korea’s light abroad. 

South Korea’s strategic environment is also becoming more difficult to navigate. Traditionally, North Korea-South Korea relations have been treated by both sides as a relationship between two feuding halves of a nation rather than as foreign adversaries. However, South Korea is now faced with a North Korea that officially views South Korea as a foreign country, that has physically destroyed the roads and buildings representing links between the North and the South, that has emphasized the continued and irreversible development of its non-conventional weapons capabilities, and that is uninterested in talks even as it cultivates a relationship with Russia that will allow it to blunt the force of sanctions. 

Regardless of who becomes president, there is no way back to the rapprochement pursued by Yoon’s predecessor Moon Jae-in.  

In the wider region, South Korea is treading in choppy waters. Russia is actively using North Korean troops, missiles, and artillery shells in its war with Ukraine, and China is not only not a strategic friend, it has become an economic competitor in many sectors. It will no longer help with restraining North Korea. The United States’ commitment to South Korea’s defense is strong, but its willingness and ability to maintain the overall Asian security architecture in which South Korea is embedded is wavering. 

Japan, for its part, is holding off on meetings with South Korean leaders until the political situation becomes clearer. Wherever the new president decides to go, the uncomfortable truth is that stronger strategic ties with Japan, both bilaterally, and in the context of ties with the United States, are the logical answer to South Korea’s strategic conundrums. A post-Yoon South Korea will certainly want to repudiate Yoon Seok-yeol’s disastrous decisions but may be forced to pick up some of the pieces of his foreign policy informed by these new realities.   

Justin Hastings is a Professor of International Relations and Comparative Politics at the University of Sydney, where he is also the Regional Security Program Leader for the Centre of International Security Studies. He is the author of several books and journal articles, including A Most Enterprising Country: North Korea in the Global Economy (Cornell University Press, 2016).

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