U.S. Foreign Policy & South Korea Un

United States policy toward the ôTwo Koreasö has many dimensions which derive from the historical complexity of the situation, its strategic nuances, and debates between supporters of a continued alliance with South Korea and supporters of a new effort to ôreach outö to North Korea (Olsen, 2000). This brief essay will examine American foreign policy toward South Korea from the end of the Korean War to the present. The thesis will be advanced that the one consistent aspect of American policy that has not changed is an overt and pointed ôone-Koreaö policy in which American officials have made Korean unification secondary to recognition of Seoul as the legitimate government of Korea (Olsen, 2000).

After the Korean War was ended by a cease-fire, the United States introduced a number of foreign policy initiatives for South Korea that focused on stabilization programs, military support, and transfer of foreign private capital (Park, 1999). A defining characteristic of such policies was the belief, frequently expressed by Washington, that the only true and legitimate government in Korea was located in Seoul; this policy positioned the ôotherö Korea, North Korea, as an illegitimate entity in which an unauthorized government controlled territory that ôbelongedö to South Korea (Park, 1999). For the better part of a decade and a half, from the end of the Korean War to 1961, it as this ideological posture which underpinned all America

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ore than the South Korean defense budget in the 1960s. Later, in the 1970s, American policy shifts caused the ROK to substantially increase its spending on defense. In 1969, the ROK agreed with President Jimmy Carter to raise its defense burden to 6 percent of GNP in return for cancellation of CarterÆs plan to withdraw all U.S. troops from the country. Since the late 1980s, however, South Korea has decreased its defense spending in parallel to the United States (Lee & Heo, 2001). Over the entire period from the end of the Korean War to the present, the U.S. has maintained a formal security treaty relationship with the country. However, as Olsen (2000) noted, the U.S. has maintained in recent decades that it may contemplate the possibility of changing its stance on the sovereignty issue û the notion that only the ROK is a ôlegitimateö sovereign state û by extending full diplomatic recognition to North Korea. This would occur, according to Olsen (2000), only in the vent that North Korea conforms to U.S> definitions of international norms. Eberstadt (2002) noted that over the last half-century, East Asia has been a virtual kaleidoscope of political and economic change, with the security face-ff in Korea one of the few constan
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Approximate Word count = 1478
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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