Adapting the U.S.-Republic of Korea Alliance to Strategic Competition in Robotics

September 15, 2014

Many aspects of the Asian security landscape are as they have been for more than a decade. China is still rising, U.S. alliances are still central to regional stability, and North Korea’s threatening rhetoric still outpaces its behavior. Asia’s many potential flashpoints—from the East and South China Seas to the Korean peninsula—are well known and have, to date, been managed in a way that has prevented crisis from becoming conflict. As a result, a kind of precarious Asian peace persists, and commerce continues to flow predictably.

Nevertheless, it would be a mistake for the U.S.-Republic of Korea (ROK) alliance to find comfort in evidence of the familiar, because a different, more disruptive kind of evidence has emerged in recent years. Far from affirming existing alliance policies, this new evidence suggests that the U.S.-ROK alliance will need to adapt to an evolving global and regional context in order to prosper.

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