New US strategy raises questions over South Korea's security, role in broader Indo-Pacific

Washington, Dec 6 (IANS) From reasserting American heft in the Western Hemisphere to prioritising Taiwan's defence and omitting the North Korean denuclearisation goal, key elements of the new US National Security Strategy (NSS) are raising questions about South Korea's security and its role in a broader regional context.

On Thursday, the White House released the NSS, declaring a plan to enforce President Donald Trump's version of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, symbolic of American isolationism, and asserting the need for Seoul and Tokyo to build capabilities to defend the First Island Chain, a key perimeter for America's preeminence against China in the Pacific, while mentioning nothing about North Korea.

The 33-page document came as Seoul and Washington push to "modernise" their alliance in a way that would increase South Korea's role in its own defence and its contributions to addressing "regional" threats, potentially including security challenges from an assertive China.

The NSS underlined the United States' desire to see South Korea and regional allies contribute to safeguarding maritime security in the Indo-Pacific, where China's territorial claims to the South and East China Seas, and its activities surrounding the Taiwan Strait, have been an abiding source of US policy concern.

It came as South Korea navigates the increasingly convoluted geopolitical landscape under a "pragmatic" foreign policy to maintain stable relations with China -- a partner crucial for trade as well as diplomacy for North Korea's denuclearisation.

"We will build a military capable of denying aggression anywhere in the First Island Chain. But the American military cannot, and should not have to, do this alone," the NSS says, referring to a string of islands, including Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines. "Our allies must step up and spend -- and more importantly, do -- much more for collective defence,"

It goes on to say, "Given President Trump's insistence on increased burden-sharing from Japan and South Korea, we must urge these countries to increase defence spending, with a focus on the capabilities -- including new capabilities -- necessary to deter adversaries and protect the First Island Chain."

The document marked a clear call for the Asian allies to help defend the strategic perimeter of the island chain, though concerns linger in Seoul that South Korea's security activities beyond its shores might complicate its focus on deterring North Korea and provoke friction with China.

"The Trump administration is calling on all its allies and partners within the first island chain to allow the US military to gain greater access to their ports and facilities and also increase capabilities and defense spending ostensibly to deter aggression in the region," Andrew Yeo, SK-Korea Foundation chair at the Brookings Institution's Center for East Asia Policy Studies, told Yonhap News Agency.

"Although China is not named, it's clear that Trump expects allies, including South Korea, to support this strategy of deterrence and denial in the first island chain, including a Taiwan Strait crisis.

Observers raised speculation that Washington could put more pressure on Seoul to play a role to help prevent China from invading Taiwan -- a self-governing democracy that China regards as part of its territory, while the US wants its troops in South Korea to have more operational flexibility to deal with China-related contingencies.

In a recently released joint fact sheet on trade and security agreements between South Korea and the US, the two sides unveiled an agreement to enhance the US conventional deterrence posture against "all regional threats" to the alliance, language that underscores Washington's call for Seoul to help deter China.

Along this line, Trump's approval for South Korea to build nuclear-powered submarines is seen by many as part of a US effort to leverage allies' security contributions against the Asian superpower.

Earlier this week, Jonathan Fritz, principal deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, said Trump's approval for the submarines was a "clear" example of cooperation to enhance the allies' collective capabilities to counter "regional" threats.

In the latest NSS, the Trump administration made clear a plan to enforce a "Trump Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere, fueling concerns over its potential implications for security in the Indo-Pacific, given that any sign of isolationism could mean a diminished commitment to the region.

Apparently mindful of the concerns, the document notes that the US will "harden and strengthen" its military presence in the Western Pacific.

This raised the prospects that the US would continue to keep its forces in South Korea, though it remains to be seen whether Washington would retain the current force level of the 28,500-strong US Forces Korea (USFK). Expectations have persisted that Washington might consider a USFK reduction in a posture readjustment to address Chinese threats.

The absence of a policy effort to denuclearise North Korea in the NSS raised questions over whether nuclear diplomacy with Pyongyang remains low on Washington's policy agenda.

The omission came as alliance modernisation efforts between Seoul and Washington are proceeding with a focus on South Korea undertaking a primary role for conventional defence against North Korean threats. Seoul also seeks to retake wartime operational control from Washington.

Some observers said that the omission could signal the Trump administration deprioritising the Korean Peninsula issue, but Yeo said he wouldn't necessarily interpret it that way.

"The NSS also made no reference to nuclear non-proliferation or the spread of nuclear weapons in the NSS," he said. "It's possible that the Trump administration might address nuclear threats, including that of North Korea, in its forthcoming National Defence Strategy."

Patrick Cronin, chair for Asia-Pacific security at the Hudson Institute, said that the omission may have been a way of preserving diplomatic flexibility should a summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un happen in the coming months.

"Implicitly, the strategy emphasises deterrence and the need to prevent conflict, whether conventional or nuclear," he told Yonhap News Agency. "If I were Kim Jong-un, I would feel slighted and inclined to include some bold nuclear ambitions as part of the preparation."

Released during the first Trump administration, the 2017 NSS said that the US would work with allies and partners to achieve "complete, verifiable and irreversible" denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula. The 2022 version under the preceding Biden administration also stated that the U.S. would seek to make progress toward the denuclearisation of the peninsula.

Emphasising the Trump administration's America First credo and pursuit of a course correction, the NSS accused past US policymakers of allowing allies and partners to offload the cost of their defence on America and "sometimes to suck us into conflicts and controversies central to their interests but peripheral or irrelevant to our own."