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During an international academic conference on Friday sponsored by the Korean Association for International Studies, Cato Institute researcher Doug Bandow said the U.S. has no vital interests in Korea that justify huge costs and sacrifices, and the two nations need to prepare for an amicable parting of ways. Meanwhile a former aide to a U.S. lawmaker who not so long ago demanded that Korea "name the enemy" said the U.S. Congress passed a resolution marking the 150 anniversary of U.S.-Japanese ties with overwhelming support, but a similar resolution marking the 50th anniversary of the Korea-U.S. alliance died for lack of support.
Then Prof. Bruce E. Bechtol, of the Air Command and Staff College, said Korea¡¯s annexation by Japan early last century and the outbreak of the Korean War were the results of failures in Korea¡¯s alliance strategy.
The comments by these experts paint a picture of a U.S. where Korea is no longer thought of as an ally in the traditional sense.
It is against this background that President Roh Moo-hyun met with heads of the ruling and opposition parties on Thursday and told them the Korea-U.S. alliance was being managed well. Put alongside the comments by the U.S. experts, it is natural to wonder what is meant by an alliance, and what by "managed well". Korea and the U.S. are using the same words with different meanings to the point where communication between the two has grown difficult.
Nations like the U.S. that handle their diplomacy in a normal fashion express complaints about nations they have friendly ties with in a roundabout way through non-official experts and the media. If their partners, too, go about diplomacy the normal way, they take such warning signals seriously and work to overcome the things that are causing tension. But if that does not happen, the relationship deteriorates little by little until it reaches the point where there is no going back.
The Korea-U.S. relationship is approaching that point of no return, and recent policy statements by the government - such as its opposition to USFK becoming an East Asian rapid-reaction force and its pretension to becoming a regional stabilizer by breaking away from the triangular alliance with the U.S. and Japan - suggest that the gulf between the two countries is widening fast.
The people are now witnessing with their own eyes the results of two years of strategic choices made according to the judgment of a president they elected. The result was encapsulated in the chilling question a European ambassador to Korea asked during a seminar. "Does Korea have a single ally it can trust?¡±
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