U.S.-ROK Alliance And East Asia Security: A Structuralism Theory Perspective

The US-ROK alliance is an important part of US alliance system in East Asia, which has been one of the pillars of US Asia-Pacific security strategy. In Post-Cold War era, the East Asian region is experiencing significant and profound changes, no doubt, the rise of China is and will continue to be the most notable feature of the region—China's economic development has driven economic growth throughout the region; At the same time, multilateral cooperation in East Asia is forging ahead, and the integration of East Asia process also speed up. The balance of power in East Asia is experiencing significant changes, and the regional power structure is giving birth to the new changes. All those have aroused the concern and vigilance of the United States. As respond, the United States began to strengthen and consolidate the alliance system in East Asia in an attempt to continue to maintain its dominance in East Asia affairs. As a part of the United States' power chain, the US-ROK alliance is also experiencing Challenges from China, East Asian regional integration process and the restructuring of the regional order. These three factors together constitute the external constraints for the further development of US-ROK alliance. The development of the US-ROK alliance will depend on the wrestling between the security strategy of the United States in East Asia and those three major external constraints.The "power structure" of Structural realism, "Conceptualized structure" of constructivism and the "institutional structure" of neo-Liberal institutionalism, has advantages and disadvantages each. On the base of a comprehensive carding to those three structure theories and its analytical framework, this paper try to use all those analytical frameworks to give a comprehensive analysis to the US-ROK alliance and regional security in East Asia.