The U.S.-South Korea Alliance, With Scott A. Snyder

LINDSAY:
Before we begin today's episode, I want to let you know that we will be doing something special to mark the end of the year. The President's Inbox will be answering questions from you in a special holiday mailbag. If you have a foreign policy question you want answered, now is your chance. You can submit your questions by emailing us at [email protected], preferably using the voice memo app on your phone, by tagging us on social media @CFR_org, or by leaving a voicemail at 301-284-0325. We will try to answer as many questions as possible, and we may even play your recording on the show. You can find all of these details about submitting a question in the show notes for today's episode on cfr.org.

Welcome to The President's Inbox, a CFR podcast about the foreign policy challenges facing the United States. I'm Jim Lindsay, director of Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. This week's topic is the U.S.-South Korea alliance.

With me to discuss U.S.-South Korea relations is Scott Snyder. Scott is senior fellow for Korea Studies and director of the program on U.S.-Korea policy at the Council. He has written extensively on South Korea's foreign policy, U.S.-South Korean relations, and security issues more broadly in Northeast Asia. He's the author of The United States-South Korea Alliance: Why It May Fail and Why It Must Not, which just hit the bookstores. Scott, congratulations on the publications of The United States-South Korea Alliance, and thank you for coming back on The President's Inbox.

SNYDER:
Thank you, Jim. It is great to be here with a book under my belt.

LINDSAY:
Before we start talking about the topics that the book covers, Scott, and the broader issue of U.S.-South Korea relations, I want to let listeners know how they can win a free copy of The United States-South Korea Alliance: Why It May Fail and Why It Must Not. To do so, all they have to do is go to cfr.org/giveaway. Let me repeat that. All you have to do is go to cfr.org/giveaway. There you can read the terms and conditions for the giveaway and register your entry. The registration for the giveaway will be open until December 26. After that, we will select ten names at random to receive a free copy of The United States-South Korea Alliance. For any listeners struggling to find a pen to jot down all this information, you can find a link to the giveaway in the show notes for The President's Inbox on CFR.org.

With those logistics out of the way, Scott, let's talk about the United States and South Korea. Earlier this year, Washington and Seoul marked the seventieth anniversary of their military alliance. It's an alliance forged in the blood of soldiers from both countries in the Korean War. It's certainly understandable why the United States and South Korea would celebrate their shared history.

But foreign policy is also a hard-headed business. Countries pursue their national interests as they see them. So I have to ask, why is the alliance with South Korea important to the United States, in your judgment?

SNYDER:
Well, the alliance provides a platform for the U.S. to pursue an effective foreign policy across the Asia-Pacific. It's part of an alliance architecture, along with the U.S.-Japan alliance, that enables the United States to defend its interests, to have partners who are engaged in doing that. And these days, maybe the most important issue is to be able to match China and try to deter China from using force-based methods by which to expand its own influence.

LINDSAY:
Let's drill down on that point, Scott, for a moment. Obviously, what we're referring to here is the willingness, perhaps the likelihood, of Beijing using force to reclaim Taiwan. Is Washington right to assume that South Korea will back up U.S. policy in that instance?

SNYDER:
I think that that is actually an area that is still a work in progress. South Korea has a slightly different view of its engagement on the Taiwan issue from the view that is held in Japan.

I think part of the South Korean ambivalence, as related to this issue, is related to the fact that they have an immediate threat from North Korea. And so, for instance, the South Korean president, when asked about South Korea's involvement in a potential Taiwan conflict, essentially said, "Well, our job is going to be to try to manage North Korea."

Having said that, this South Korean President, Yoon Suk-yeol, has been rather forward leaning compared to many of his predecessors in terms of being willing to state clearly South Korea's interest in peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits. And in fact, he got into a little bit of trouble with Beijing because he also said that he viewed instability across the straits as having international implications, and Beijing took exception to that and criticized him harshly for that back last April.

LINDSAY:
So let me flip the question around Scott, and ask you, since you raised the issue of North Korea, doesn't the alliance with South Korea put the United States at risk of an attack from North Korea? And if so, isn't having an alliance with South Korea creating more challenges for the United States?

SNYDER:
There is a sense in which the alliance binds the two countries together in facing a shared threat. And one issue that the U.S. would naturally be concerned about, as related to its alliance with South Korea, is the possibility of being dragged into an inter-Korean conflict.

And that actually has been an issue at times where the U.S. has really focused more on trying to promote stability, whereas South Korea has at times sought to pursue a more definitive punishment or response to, in some particular cases, North Korean aggression. I think the classic example of that really goes back to 2010, the North Korean shelling of Yeonpyeong island, a South Korean held island off the North Korean coast. At that time, the South Korean government considered pursuing a strike that would not only hit the batteries that were responsible for the strike on the island, but also aim at the command authority. And I believe that the U.S. Forces Korea tried to discourage the South Korean government from expanding its aims, precisely out of concerns related to maintenance of stability and trying to avoid an escalatory spiral.

LINDSAY:
So Scott, why is it that you net out at the position that, given all the foregoing, the United States benefits more than it loses from a military alliance with South Korea?

And I ask that because some people might be listening to our conversation and saying, "Well, if the South Koreans aren't going to be with us on the issue we really care about or worry about, and they might drag us into a conflict that we don't want, maybe the calculus doesn't work out."

SNYDER:
Well at this point, I would make the argument that the security interests that South Korea faces and the security interests, challenges that the United States faces are both shared challenges. They are converging interests. As related to North Korea, there's no question that North Korea is an exporter of international insecurity with its missile and potential nuclear program. And as related to China, increasingly, the U.S. and South Korea are viewing China through the same lens, with slightly different timeframes for and pressure points in terms of expressing concern. But they're basically on the same page as related to the need to underscore a rules-based versus a might-based regional or international order. And so, I believe that under current circumstances, we see converging interests.

The other point that I would make is that the interests and stakes, as related to the alliance, have actually expanded beyond security in ways that put the U.S. and South Korea into a partnership relationship. And here I would point to mutual economic interests, the flows of South Korean investment into the United States, and also a shared interest on a variety of functional issues where South Korea has emerged as a strong partner with the United States, really that expands beyond the traditional peninsula focus to a regional and global focus. And so, for instance, I would cite the fact that South Korea has become a significant supplier of armaments to neighbors of Ukraine as a way of backfilling the flow of arms into Ukraine, as part of the response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

LINDSAY:
So then let's sort of flip the question around. We've been talking about why South Korea matters from an American point of view. Why does the United States matter to South Korea? How is it that keeping this alliance serves South Korea's interests?

SNYDER:
Well, South Korea historically has been the weakest country in its neighborhood, and therefore, it needs a strong protector. But more recently, I would say that as South Korea emerges as a capable partner, it also still recognizes that it needs the United States for security purposes, but also, that the relationship with the United States is essential to enhancing South Korea's ability to conduct its diplomacy and to pursue its international aspirations as a global security provider. And so, for instance, as we think about how South Korea interacts with its neighbors in Beijing, when South Korea tries to go it alone, China looks like the 800 pound gorilla. But on the platform provided by the alliance, South Korea gets a little bit of a boost and can hold its own a little bit better as it faces Beijing.

Moreover, I would argue that as South Korea aspires to do more globally—for instance, participating with NATO or with the G7—a strong relationship with the United States and also with Japan is actually critical to South Korea's ability to make those kinds of contributions.

LINDSAY:
You and I have had this conversation before. But in South Korea, there seemed to be two different concerns held by different people. On the one hand, there is the fear of entrapment—that while you get something by being allied with the United States, you run the risk that you're going to get dragged into conflicts that aren't a priority for South Korea. And you've already alluded to the issue of Taiwan.

The fear on the other side is one of abandonment—that the United States is making promises that South Korea won't be able to redeem in a crisis. So walk me through how South Koreans think about that.

SNYDER:
Well, I think both of those issues are ever-present, actually, on both sides of the relationship. With regards to South Korean views related to abandonment and entrapment, usually the concern in South Korea, as related to entrapment, is related to the kinds of requests that the U.S. might make as related to military operations out of area. And so I think back to the fact that South Korea was involved in the Iraq conflict. Or going back even further, South Korea was a major force provider in Vietnam. South Korea has been asked to play that role in various forms. And a lot of times, South Korea decides to play that role because they're concerned about entrapment, but they're also concerned about abandonment.

On the abandonment side, I think that the really big issue of the moment or for this time is really related to the credibility of U.S. security guarantees in the face of a nuclear North Korea. And there, the issue is, basically, from a peninsular perspective, South Korea feels its vulnerability to North Korea's asymmetric threat: the ability to possibly use a nuclear weapon in conflict against South Korea. But it has to depend on the United States in order to actually match that threat.

And so the current concern in South Korea increasingly is as North Korea expands its missile capabilities, its ability potentially to strike the United States with a nuclear weapon, is there a risk that the U.S. might not meet its security commitment, might be deterred from meeting its security commitment to South Korea, and leave South Korea by itself facing a nuclear North Korea?

LINDSAY:
Scott, do South Koreans who are worried about the United States being deterred by nuclear North Korea take any comfort from the fact that this problem of so-called "extended deterrence" is one the United States lived with throughout the Cold War? Was obviously the great concern that the United States might not be willing to risk New York to protect Paris, or London, or Bonn.

SNYDER:
I would say that a lot of South Korean colleagues are very well aware of the history, but it doesn't make them feel any better. Because now, it's them. And the question of, can we depend on the United States, an outside party. Is that acceptable or is it better for us to depend on ourselves?

And so that's really where we've seen, especially this year, a debate in South Korea. You know, upwards of 60 to 70 percent of the South Korean public say, "Yes, we'd like to have our own nuclear capability." But back in April, the two governments announced a Washington Declaration and pledged even closer joint nuclear planning for potential contingencies as related to nuclear use on the peninsula. So it's definitely a live issue in South Korea, and it's probably the clearest area where abandonment plays a role.

But I want to go a little bit further on the entrapment side because the other thing that I see happening right now between the U.S. and South Korea is deepening institutionalization of alliance capabilities and cooperation. And there, I think that to some degree, both sides may be mutually entrapped to a greater degree than ever before. They're tied together in more significant ways.

LINDSAY:
Can you explain that in a bit more detail, Scott? What do you mean in concrete terms by increased institutionalization of the alliance?

SNYDER:
Well, basically the U.S. and South Korea are cooperating extensively on North Korea, but now they're also cooperating, for instance, aspirationally on shared technologies, on supply chain resiliency, on a whole set of issues that actually bind the governments together in various ways...Shared development aspirations in the Indo-Pacific. And so, as this institutionalization occurs, it also means that there is a potential political liability as related to observers who might say, "Oh, well, we're losing our autonomy because now we're too dependent on this alliance cooperation as the main, as really the only vehicle by which to pursue some of our national security objectives."

LINDSAY:
Well, let's talk a bit more about that and your view of the future of the alliance. Maybe we can begin with you giving us your sense of the health of the alliance here today at the end of 2023, before we start talking about future threats or stresses on the alliance.

SNYDER:
Under current circumstances between the Biden and Yoon administrations, I would describe the relationship as rather robust and resilient, but I also think that there are ways in which the alliance is actually also vulnerable to potential pressures from domestic political polarization on both sides.

Another way of putting it is that on the surface, cooperation is good. But in the event of a power transition in either Washington or Seoul, there may emerge tensions that could actually greatly hamper and maybe even paralyze alliance cooperation.

LINDSAY:
Well, let's talk then about that issue, looking at potential transitions in both countries. Let's begin with South Korea. Perhaps you can lay out for us some sense of the divisions within South Korea over the alliance, how they align with the political forces in South Korea.

SNYDER:
Yeah. So this is really what I've been tracking very closely over the course of the past few years. The last South Korean election was one in which the two main candidates were divided by less than 1 percent of the vote.

LINDSAY:
Much like in the United States.

SNYDER:
Yes. Well, yes. They ran on domestic issues, but they each had very different foreign policy platforms. And the cooperation between the current administration and the United States is rather strong because that particular candidate made the U.S. the center of his foreign policy vision. But it is also possible that if the other candidate had won, there would've been a lot more tension between the two sides. And so that is a risk factor that, in my view, actually outweighs the external threats to the alliance—the threat from North Korea or the threat from China.

LINDSAY:
What I'd like to do, Scott, is perhaps talk about what the state of the alliance is today as we come to the end of 2023. Is the alliance in a good place? Does it have major fissures? How would you assess the health of the alliance?

SNYDER:
Well, I would actually say that, at this moment, the alliance is probably in as good a shape as it has been in a very long time. As part of the seventieth anniversary of the alliance, the U.S. and South Korea are engaging in cooperation across more issues and really globally in scope than ever before.

And so, that is really very positive. And also, we see new areas opening up for cooperation. The ones that come to mind for me are development cooperation, and also cooperation in new technology development space the U.S. and South Korea are working together on. Cyber security issues, they're working closely on, especially as related to North Korean cyber threat. And so, I would just say that there's probably more cooperation between the governments on a wider variety of issues across governments than we have ever seen before.

LINDSAY:
And that's true even though Seoul was quite unhappy with the U.S. passage of the Inflation Reduction Act which provided benefits to American producers that made it a bit harder for South Korean automakers to crack the American market?

SNYDER:
Well, a flip side of the Inflation Reduction Act is that it demonstrates even greater engagement by South Korea in the U.S. economy than we have seen previously. Over $100 billion of inward investment since 2021. And so it means that South Korean companies really want to be integrated with the U.S. market. They don't want to be discriminated against. And of course, there's a whole variety of reasons why that is occurring, but I think the net effect is that it is making the relationship even stronger.

LINDSAY:
So the alliance is in good shape right now, but you just wrote a book that had the subtitle about why the alliance might fail. So let's talk about the stresses you see on the alliance. And maybe we could begin by talking about the stresses you see on the South Korean side of the alliance.

SNYDER:
And I would say that, especially at this moment, it feels like I'm making a contrarian argument. But as I look at the forces that shape South Korean foreign policy, what I see is that underlying strong leadership, pro-U.S. leadership, at this moment, there are also domestic divisions in South Korea. And many of those divisions, they don't necessarily relate to the United States, but they relate to U.S. interests, especially connected to differences within South Korea over how to deal with North Korea and how to deal with Japan.

And so I think that what ends up happening is that those very deep-seated differences that are actually growing even more entrenched have the potential to be sources of tension in the U.S.-Korea relationship, especially under a different type of South Korean political leadership that is providing a different vision on those issues.

LINDSAY:
I'm curious on that score, Scott. To what extent does China factor into the domestic debate in South Korea? I ask because I've seen polls recently showing that nearly eight out of ten South Koreans have a negative view of China. And obviously, China is the big power in the region. And for the United States, China, in many respects, at least for the Biden administration, is foreign policy job one.

SNYDER:
Well, what you're talking about, Jim, is a dramatic shift in South Korean public opinion from say six or seven years ago as related to the relationship with China. And a lot of that is driven by South Korea having felt the effects of Chinese economic coercion, especially following a dispute over a missile defense system that the U.S. put into South Korea. But more broadly, really just a souring of views and a concern about China's future intentions that I think is also, in part, reflected on the economic side because China used to be the destination for South Korean investment. Now the U.S. is, and I think the main reason for that is that the Chinese economic environment became inhospitable for South Korean companies. It was not providing integration that South Korean companies were looking for. And so now, they've shifted their focus to the United States.

LINDSAY:
And I should note the missile system you referred to, THAAD was a missile system the United States deployed in South Korea to protect South Korea against the threat from North Korea, not to protect South Korea from China, although Beijing insisted to the contrary.

SNYDER:
That's exactly right. The Terminal High Altitude Air Defense system. The Chinese claimed that it had a radar system that would extend into China and therefore disadvantage Chinese security interests. But the focus of the defense system was really on North Korea's advancing missile capabilities.

LINDSAY:
And Scott, to what extent does what's commonly called "anti-Americanism," though I'm not really sure that's the right phrase, factor into South Korean attitudes toward the United States? My sense is, for at least some people on the left side of the political spectrum in South Korea, there's still some resentment over U.S. support for military dictatorships in South Korea. Is that still a real factor, or has that ebbed over time?

SNYDER:
I think it's ebbed over time. It's kind of a legacy issue. It is still present, I think, in the public consciousness. But the broader contemporary security environment is really a factor that puts it back of mind. And then also, the other factor is really related to North Korea and the fact that there is an ongoing debate within South Korea over how to relate to North Korea. And it also involves some pro-North Korean interests that are also anti-American.

And so, I think that what that means is that within the South Korean body politic, there's always going to be a small group of people—I don't even want to put a percentage on it, but let's think single digits—that is lighting the match every time that there is a potential incendiary issue related to the United States. But I would say in the current environment, they're lighting a match in a rainforest. It's not catching fire. Under other circumstances, we might imagine that it might catch fire. We saw that happen back in the early 2000s, for instance. But those days ... I think the environment now is just so different from the environment that existed at that time, that even despite continuous efforts by a small group of people, we really don't see much evidence of anti-Americanism in South Korea having any legs.

LINDSAY:
And I probably should have referred to it really as a dislike for specific choices the United States made in its relations with South Korea, as opposed to a rejection of Americans or American culture or things like that.

SNYDER:
Well, the issues I think you're referring to, they do go deep in the South Korean political environment. They have very deep roots there. But they don't necessarily, at this point, I would say, translate very well into sentiment towards the United States. I think we've kind of finally moved past that to some degree.

LINDSAY:
So let's talk about the alliance from the other end, from the United States. What do you see as the stresses, potential dangers from the American side in this relationship?

SNYDER:
Well, on the U.S. side, I think that there's also a strong public support, actually, for South Korea. But we saw a lot of tension, for instance, in the Trump administration over specific issues in the U.S.-South Korea relationship. And many of them-

LINDSAY:
Support for U.S. troops in South Korea was a big issue for President Trump.

SNYDER:
That's right. And specifically, it was how much were South Koreans paying for the U.S. presence in South Korea.

LINDSAY:
And there are what, 28,000 U.S. troops in South Korea?

SNYDER:
Yeah, just shy of 28,000 in South Korea. It fluctuates. But, you know, that is a presence that is there. There is a regularly negotiated cost sharing agreement that goes to partial support for the U.S. presence. But President Trump really wanted to amp that up, and so that became a source of tension in the relationship.

And I think that also, any sense of American turn toward isolationism worries South Koreans. And one can imagine that if that particular segment of the U.S. voting public were to grow, that that would be a potential threat to the U.S.-Korea alliance.

LINDSAY:
The obvious elephant in the room, Scott, is Donald Trump's candidacy to come back to the White House in January 2025. He's currently leading the polls. What does a Trump presidency mean for the U.S.-South Korea relationship, as best you can tell?

SNYDER:
Very hard to predict, I think, precisely what that would look like. I can say that South Koreans think about what happened in the first Trump administration related to his outreach to North Korea and related to the dramatically exorbitant demands for cost sharing on U.S. troops. And they're anxious about it.

But I would argue that there's also a different geopolitical environment that would be in place in January of 2025. One big difference between the first Trump administration and the second Trump administration is that there is a conservative South Korean government in place as opposed to a progressive South Korean government in place. And so that government is not going to help President Trump reach out again to Kim Jong Un. In fact, they're going to be advocating for deterrence policies. 

So I would just say that there's a deepening Sino-U.S. divide that will also serve to inhibit the prospects of any renewed summitry between China and North Korea. Kim Jong Un may feel that he learned his lesson from the failed Hanoi Summit with Trump, and it's not clear that he would be coming back for more. So I think that a new Trump administration would be focused on transactional political gains that it can achieve in that new geopolitical environment.

LINDSAY:
So Scott, you can obviously hope for geopolitical forces to drive countries together, but there's also the element of choice. And again, you've just written a book where you're worried about the future of the U.S.-South Korea alliance and that it might fail. What are the policy steps this administration, potentially a Trump administration, or any other administration take to reinvigorate, shore up, sustain the alliance?

SNYDER:
Well, I think the main argument is basically to strengthen public support for what has already been happening between the United States and South Korea. Another important development that has occurred recently is the deepening trilateral cooperation among the U.S., Japan, and South Korea. And I think that that is a factor that can also help to sustain, actually, both alliances in cooperation with each other. And so that I think is another area of emphasis that should be continued. I don't know how a new administration would look at that issue. But I think that in terms of promoting effective alliance cooperation, that one is important. And then also, using the new areas of cooperation on technology to strengthen our shared interests is an effective way of trying to promote and sustain the alliance relationship.

LINDSAY:
I think that's an important point, Scott, and it often gets lost in the discussion, but South Korea is a technological powerhouse. And particularly, the Samsung company and the chip business occupies a very important part of the manufacturing chain. And again, semiconductors, chips, are so critical to the modern economy.

SNYDER:
Well, that's right. And I think that what we see is that those are the main areas where we see South Korean inward investment, electric batteries and semiconductors. And so South Korean companies are, like it or not, going to be important as part of a shared vision for making economic progress and also providing a basis for pursuing shared security interests.

LINDSAY:
On that note, I'll close up The President's Inbox for this week. My guest has been Scott Snyder, senior fellow for Korea studies and director of the program on U.S.-Korea policy here at the Council on Foreign Relations. Scott, it's always a delight to chat.

SNYDER:
Thank you, Jim.

LINDSAY:
Please subscribe to The President's Inbox in Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you listen. And leave us your review, we love the feedback. The publications mentioned in this episode and a transcript of our conversation are available on the podcast page for The President's Inbox on CFR.org. As always, opinions expressed on The President's Inbox are solely those of the host or our guests, not of CFR, which takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. 

Today's episode was produced by Ester Fang with Director of Podcasting Gabrielle Sierra. Special thanks go out to Michelle Kurilla for her research assistance. This is Jim Lindsay. Thanks for listening.