U.S. Experts Dismiss Seoul's Regional Ambitions

At the same time he denied that the new role in the region will somehow undermine the Korea-U.S. alliance. "Korea will anchor its balancing role in the Korea-U.S. alliance," the official added. Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan, too, said on the same day, "We must free ourselves from the continental containment way of thinking."

It all fits in with President Roh Moo-hyun's earlier announcement that the power structure in Northeast Asia will change in future depending on what choice Korea makes. The cold-war model, the government is saying, pits a southern alliance of Korea, the U.S. and Japan against the northern alliance of North Korea, China and Russia. Korea should break away from that structure, so the new doctrine goes, and play a stabilizing role between the two camps.

But the international community has responded with bewilderment to the government's new foreign affairs and security policy, as it is grandly called.

To begin with, it is impossible to maintain an alliance on the one hand and on the other play a stabilizing role between a side one is allied with and another side one is not. An alliance, simply put, is a mutual security pact, a commitment to side with partner when it is embroiled in a conflict or war.

But our government says Korea will maintain an alliance under which America will fight along with us when we are attacked on the one hand, but on the other play a stabilizing role in which Korea takes a neutral stance when the U.S. becomes a party in a conflict elsewhere in Northeast Asia. From Korea's perspective, this may be a highly desirable state of affairs, of course -- all the advantages of an alliance with none of the drawbacks. But no ally can accept such conditions. From the U.S. perspective, South Korea is abrogating the alliance.

Playing a stabilizing role in Northeast Asia between the U.S.-Japan camp and the North Korea-China-Russia camp is a pipe dream far above the reality of international politics. To play a genuine stabilizing role like the European powers in the past, South Korea would have to have the weight that tilts the balance of power toward the side it joins forces with. It is a sad reality, however, that South Korea is sandwiched between world powers ten times stronger both militarily and economically.

All in all, the government's idea, splendid as it may sound, is bound to result in isolation because it will not win the trust of either camp. There is another point. The South Korean government is talking about balancing things in the entirely hypothetical case of a "U.S.-China conflict" or "China-Japan confrontation." That is bound to send a message not just to the U.S. -- with which we have kept a cooperative security relationship for 50 years -- but also to Japan that Seoul cannot be trusted any longer.

Washington and Tokyo may be reformulating their strategies as we speak, on the assumption that South Korea could cross over to the other camp and become an imaginary enemy.