The post‐cold war security agenda of Korea: Inertia, new thinking, and assessments

Abstract

Abstract Unlike many other developing countries where national security serves often as a disguise for regime survival, in South Korea it has always been a serious matter. Threats from North Korea have been real, and military confrontation with the North has remained acute and protracted since the Korean War in 1950. In ensuring national survival in a precarious security environment, South Korea has adopted traditional realist prescriptions: military self‐help through the maximization of power stocks, mobilization of human and material resources, and effective alliance management with the United States (Rhee 1986: Baek 1985: Min 1983: MND 1992, 1993–4). Two recent events have, however, precipitated the alteration of this traditional conception of national security: democratic transition and consolidation since 1987 and the dissolution of the bipolar cold war system which subsequently changed the regional security environment. Democratization and the proliferation of contending interest groups have profoun...