Exposed to the primary threat of missile and nuclear attacks by North Korea; South Korea inevitably wants to develop missiles to ensure deterrence. However; the United States; as an ally; is concerned that this will spark an arms race in East Asia; and attempts to limit Korea’s missile development. Since the two nations have a different stance on missile development; the Korea-U.S. Alliance is caught in the conflict between South Korea’s will to develop missiles; and the United States’ restriction on missile development. South Korea’s desire for missile development clearly reveals the different stance on security of both nations; and precipitates the alliance dilemma when it comes to the Korea-U.S. Alliance. This raises the question: Why do the two nations come to a compromise without a division?
The purpose of this study is to analyze the formation and alleviation of the dilemma between Korea and the US that was triggered by South Korea’s determination to develop missiles; based on the missile that expresses the properties of the two countries and induce ‘sensitivity’ between the two countries; as it was initially brought on by the North Korea’s missile threat in connection to nuclear threats. The objective is divided into empirical analysis and theoretical analysis. Three empirical cases of empirical are given to analyze each process of the formation and alleviation of the Korea-U.S. alliance per time period; the cases given in this study are ‘the Korea-U.S. Missile Memorandum of Understanding;’ ‘the 1st Korea-U.S. Missile Guideline;’ and ‘the 2nd Amendment of Korea-U.S. Missile Guideline.’ As for the theoretical analysis; the three cases in the empirical analysis are translated into the view of ‘abandonment-entrapment’ to theoretically examine the characteristics of the process of formation and alleviation of the Korea-U.S. dilemma caused by the will of South Korea to develop missiles.
Hereupon; ‘process tracing’ will be conducted as the method of the investigation. An account of a particular case can be accompanied; and such process or outcome could be substituted with a theory to calculate the experimental outcome through ‘process tracing.’ ‘Documentary research’ based on empirical facts is required to conduct a ‘process tracing;’ and this dissertation puts its foundation on the ‘documentary research.’ The approach towards the first reference was prioritized to meet the requirements for ‘documentary research.’ An attempt to collect declassified government references was made to construct the content of this dissertation. Access to such references was difficult to gather in conducting this study; as they are mostly composed of classified government information. Thus; the first reference; along with the declassified government references; were fully utilized to fill such gap.
To conclude; the ‘policy tradeoff between the alliance nations’ acts as an independent variable to ease the dilemma of the Korea-U.S. Alliance. The United States allowed limited development to relieve its ally; South Korea; from the fear of ‘abandonment.’ South Korea; on the other hand; enthusiastically participates in ‘the denuclearization policy’ of the United States to lower the possibility of ‘entrapment;’ as well as relieve the Korea-U.S. dilemma brought by South Korea’s will for missile development. Thus; a settlement is drawn for Korea-U.S. Missile Agreement. ‘Defense science and technology;’ ‘alliance commitment;’ ‘national political influence’ act; and ‘international systematic influence’ act as intervening variables to heighten its power of explanation.
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