The United States-South Korean Alliance: Beyond The Cold War And Into The New Century

Half a century has ellapsed since the Korean War ended, yet North Korea and South Korea remain technically at war. On the other hand, the U.S.-ROK alliance is still strong although the Cold War has long ended. However, this alliance relationship faces a lot of challenges at present. South Korea has matured both economically and militarily and is eager to have an equal status with the United States in the alliance. While the United States, as the only superpower in all the world, is determined to maintain its dorminance in all places of strategic importance, including the Korean Peninsula. The public in South Korea are getting less and less tolerant towards the U.S. dominance, especially on issues of reconsiliation and reunification with North Korea. This paper seeks to examine and discuss certain issues in the alliance that may have a great impact on the ROK-U.S. relations, including the U.S. Forces in Korea, North Korean nuclear contraversy and anti-Americanism in South Korea. Besides, efforts made by both the U.S. and South Korea in maintaining their alliance relaitonship as well as their acchievements are also discussed. In the last chapter of the thesis, I hypothesize a possible direction of development of the U.S.-ROK alliance based on an analysis of U.S. and ROK security and other considerations.