The Research On ROK—US Strategic Alliance Under The Perspective Of The Alliance Dilemma

After the cold war, the South Korea-America military alliance started to be in a stateof “drifting”. Especially, after the and presidency, the two nations’ relationship has beenin an actual state of “separating”. South Korea and America were facing the inevitableestrangement of their relationship. The existence of the unbalanced features of the twonations’ alliance relationship made the situation worse for South Korea which was stuckin the “alliance dilemma”. How to recover the two nations’ deteriorating relationship andHow to relieve Korea’s concerns emerging with the “ alliance dilemma” were tasks leftto the candidate who would win the 2007 president election in Korea.After the newly inaugurated president Lee myung-bak took office, the SouthKorea-America alliance went further and deeper and the two nations decided to upgradetheir military alliance into strategic one which was a concrete development of theirrelationship. When Park Geun-hye came into power on Feb, 2013, the two nationsextended their cooperation range and the strategic alliance between the two nationscontinued to maintain a comprehensive and profound state.Under the background of the strategy of “returning to Asia Pacific region” launchedby Obama’ government, this paper retrospects and analyses the developing track ofAmerica and South Korea’s alliance relationship, unveils how South Korea is implicatedand abandoned in the “alliance dilemma, and then gives a new definition to the Americaand South Korea’ alliance relationship by combining the America’s strategy of “returningto the Asia Pacific region” and South Korea’s way of getting rid of the “alliancedilemma”. South Korea and America launch comprehensive and profound cooperation inthe fields of politics, economy, military and social culture and interact with each other onthe different strategic levels in the Korea Peninsula, the Asia-Pacific regions and theinternational community. By taking these aforesaid measures, South Korea lessens theintensity of the “ alliance dilemma”.Although the America and South Korea’s alliance relationship is repaired anddeveloped, they still run into problems in the aspects of the commanding position inwartime, transfer of their military bases, the strategic flexibility of American soldiers inSouth Korea and so on. Meanwhile, Korea-America strategic alliance relationship is alsoone of the key points which is worth China’s attentions from now on.