Security Strategies of Middle Powers in the Asia Pacific by Ralf Emmers & Sarah Teo

Author:Ralf Emmers & Sarah Teo
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780522871180
Publisher: Melbourne University Publishing

Conclusion

Since the early 1990s, South Korea has identified itself as a middle power and its resources have attested to its regional and global status. As a middle power, South Korea has employed both functional and normative regional security strategies but, due to its relatively high level of resource availability and high-threat strategic environment, has relied more on a functional one. It has focused its security strategy on the existential threat posed by North Korea and, consequently, maintaining US hegemony in the region. While the North Korean challenge is now an issue of concern for South Korea and for the international community as a whole, Seoul is arguably most directly affected by Pyongyang’s actions. This accounts for South Korea’s regional security strategy being specifically targeted at easing peninsular tensions.

South Korea’s functional strategy has been reflected through Nordpolitik, the Four and Six-Party Talks, the Sunshine Policy, the second Nuclear Security Summit, and the trust-building process on the Korean peninsula. Its resources have also been utilised in its offers of economic and humanitarian assistance to North Korea, as well as its contributions towards US overseas missions that demonstrate its commitment to the alliance and helps maintain US military presence in the region. Where it has participated in normative regional initiatives, they have in part been guided by its preoccupation with North Korea—thus rendering them ultimately part of a functional strategy. The only exception is perhaps the EAVG and its contribution towards regional community building, but even so South Korea’s role was relatively short-lived. By examining South Korea’s regional security strategy through the functional and normative approaches, we have highlighted the middle power’s instrumental role in the North Korean issue, and also as a consequence its part in supporting the US security presence in the region.

Notes

1 Ministry of National Defense, Republic of Korea (MND ROK), ‘2014 Defense White Paper’, 31 December 2014, http://www.mnd.go.kr/cop/pblictn/selectPublicationUser.do?siteId=mnd_eng&componentId=51&categoryId=0&publicationSeq=689&pageIndex=1&id=mnd_eng_021400000000, accessed 4 January 2016, pp. 36–8.

2 G John Ikenberry and Jongryn Mo, The Rise of Korean Leadership: Emerging Powers and Liberal International Order (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), p. 12.

3 In March 2017, South Korea’s Constitutional Court ousted Park from office, following allegations of corruption and abuse of power. At the time of writing, South Korea had yet to set a date to elect the next President.

4 Amitav Acharya, ‘Will Asia’s Past be its Future?’, International Security, vol. 28, no. 3 (2003/2004), pp. 159–61; Kai He, ‘Does ASEAN Matter? International Relations Theories, Institutional Realism, and ASEAN’, Asian Security, vol. 2, no. 3 (2006), pp. 189–214.

5 Sarah Teo, Bhubhindar Singh, and See Seng Tan, ‘Southeast Asian Perspectives on South Korea’s Middle Power Engagement Initiatives’, Asian Survey, vol. 56, no. 3 (2016), p. 558.

6 World Bank, ‘GDP at Market Prices (Current US$)’, 2016, http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD, accessed 25 October 2016.

7 OECD, ‘DAC Member Profile: Korea’, 2016, http://www.oecd.org/dac/korea.htm, accessed 10 March 2016.

8 Dong-min Shin, ‘The Concept of Middle Power and the Case of the ROK: A Review’, in Rüdiger Frank, James E. Hoare, Patrick Köllner, and Susan Pares (eds.), Korea 2012: Politics, Economy and Society (Leiden: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2012), pp.

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