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At "Korea and the United States 2006", a seminar in Washington co-sponsored by the Chosun Ilbo, former National Security Council senior director for Asian affairs Michael Green said the two countries have concentrated on details rather than big strategies. Washington¡¯s Director for Asian Affairs at the NSC Victor Cha said process and results should be considered separately: and while the process seems confused, the results have been considerable.
Prof. Paik Jin-hyun of Seoul National University said, "It's doubtful if deep strategic dialogue is being conducted between South Korea and the U.S. Uncertainties and concerns arise because we don't know where the strategy is headed." Former foreign minister Han Seung-joo said that because South Korea's and America's perceptions of North Korea have changed, the South Korea-U.S. alliance, whose objective is deterring North Korea, must seek a new raison d'etre.
Although they differed in their assessment of the changes in the Seoul-Washington alliance, the speakers all agreed that it is changing. U.S. officials call the change an "evolution." But a Republican lawmaker told a hearing at the House International Relations Committee the same day that Seoul is ¡°betraying¡± the blood shed by Americans in the Korean War 50 years ago.
The Korea-U.S. alliance was formed at the height of the Cold War in 1953. But the iron curtain is no more, and Seoul now enjoys an incomparably higher status than it did at the time. A change in the nature of the alliance is therefore to a certain extent inevitable. The problem is the gap in perceptions of North Korea, the common threat that bound the alliance together, between the two governments. If that connection is fraying, we must search for a fresh common goal to sustain the alliance. But there has been no dialogue on the matter.
The Korea-U.S. alliance belongs to neither the Roh Moo-hyun nor the George W. Bush administration. It is a treasured possession of the two nations. If the alliance can no longer be sustained in its present form, they must search for a new mutually beneficial relationship. "Since the U.S. president and responsible ministers said there are no problems in the Seoul-Washington alliance, there are no problems," the president said. We cannot afford to believe that.
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