As empires weaken or collapse, they either start wars to preserve themselves—or provoke wars through the chaos of their absence. The greater the empire’s role in shaping global or regional order, the more damaging its decline is likely to be—both for itself and for others.
Diplomacy is dead. Where it stood now sits political grift, ego, and Big Mac burger wrappers.
In South Korea, the idea of a post-American Asia—that is, a regional order no longer anchored by the U.S. alliance system—invites wildly divergent visions. Nowhere are these differences more vivid than at the ideological extremes.
Hugh White’s recent essay in The Quarterly argues that Australia should be preparing now for the departure of the U.S. He notes “it is futile for Australia to frame its defence around U.S. deterrence of China when America itself is not serious about it.” His essay is understandably focused on Australia, but much of what he says applies equally to South Korea. Should South Korea be preparing now for the departure of the U.S.?
The Indo-Pacific is not Europe. Not all states agree there is a common adversary, there is no formal alliance structure, and the institutional mechanisms that make NATO rearmament both credible and coherent, doesn’t exist.
Kenneth Waltz’s “The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May Be Better” seems to have passed from academic to popular reading in South Korea. I saw an ajumma in the park reading it while her poodle panted beside her in a dog pram. It was a very unique situation.
Each state has their own rationales. South Korea has three: diplomatic timing, strategic delay; and the decreased relevance of NATO-IP4 framework.
U.S. foreign policy and its lack of predictability now looks dangerous for South Korea—and that’s without considering the second and third-order effects.
Significance. Strategic flexibility — the concept that U.S. (and potentially South Korean) forces stationed on the Korean Peninsula will deploy regionally without explicit prior approval — remains one of the most contentious defense issues between Washington and Seoul. It has been conspicuously absent from electoral discourse for the presidential election.
U.S. soft power is disappearing faster than a bouffant comb-over on a windy day - and in Seoul the winds are blowing hard.
