The United States gives the first priority to taking the North Korean contingency as an opportunity to achieve the end state of the ROK-U.S. alliance which is the Korean unification. It is hard to deny the possibility, however, that the U.S. will move toward the direction of maintaining the status-quo on the Korean peninsula unless the North Korean contingency unfolds to seriously damage U.S. interests on the Korean peninsula. When the U.S. decides to intervene, its types of intervention could take the form of either direct military or indirect political intervention. This means the U.S. could intervene militarily with the support from allies such as ROK and Japan. Otherwise, the U.S. will explore indirect intervention by bringing the North Korean issue to the United Nations where it will request the concerned parties to take diplomatic and economic measures.

In coping with the North Korean contingency, ROK and the United States must cooperate with each other within the context of ROK-Japan-U.S. trilateral coordination. It would be desirable to restore order and stability within North Korea through peace-keeping operations. ROK and the United States could explore multi-national peace-keeping operations when the U.N.-centered approach is resisted by China and Russia. Under any circumstances, ROK should be determined to transform the situation to the Korean unification, which would induce U.S. support and cooperation, thereby preventing the U.S. and China from “conspiring” to maintain the status-quo on the peninsula. In addition, ROK and the United States should continue to convince China and Russia with the rational that the Korean unification will eliminate fundamental cause of Korean instabilities and it will promote peace and stability on the Korean peninsula.