Korean Studies
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Victor D. Cha, Alignment Despite Antagonism: The United States-Korea-Japan Security Triangle, Stanford: Stanford University Press 1999. 374 pages. ISBN: 0-7047-3191-8.
Reviewed by George Oakley Totten III
University of Southern California
[This review first appeared in Acta Koreana, 3 (2000): 175-77. Acta Koreana is published by Academia Koreana of Keimyung University.]
This study is a classical and highly successful thesis in political science-international relations in which hypotheses are posited and tested and then readied for applications in other periods and other sections of the world. The "new" concept of quasi-alliance explains relations between South Korea and Japan, and does so better than the traditional explanation of inherited animosities, although these are not to be ignored.
The new concepts of "entrapment" and "abandonment" fears are used to explain the changes in the relationships among the triangle made up of the United States at the top and South Korea and Japan as the two legs, whereas traditional antagonisms could not account for the movements back and forth between closeness (cooperation) and separation (antagonism) that are clear in three periods between l968 and l988. The traditional explanation would only anticipate a gradual warming of relations as old antagonisms are forgotten. But this was not the case here. There were ups and downs in this quasi-alliance which really began with the American participation in the Korean War, which was a hot spot in the overreaching Cold War in which Japan was also involved.
To lay the groundwork for the hypotheses, the author, who was a graduate student at Columbia University and did pre- and postdoctoral work at Harvard, examines the history of animosities, especially between Korea and Japan after the end of the Second World War, when Korea is no longer a colony and America has stepped into the picture. He then develops his own alternative explanatory hypotheses. The third part of the book tests these within the time frame mentioned above. More specifically, he first defines the first of three periods as starting with the Nixon doctrine (l969-71); the second, as the short détente (l972-74), which followed Nixon's historic meeting with Mao Zedong; and the third, as starting with the Nixon abandonment of Vietnam and covering the Carter years (1975-79). Cha then finds that during the l980's under Reagan, America is better able to supply security, so it was possible (permissible) for South Korea and Japan to squabble and revisit old antagonisms, without fears of abandonment by the U.S., that in the past had brought the two together.
Cha develops three propositions to clarify his concepts: (1) "When a state fears abandonment, one of the options it will choose is to show a stronger commitment to the alliance in order to elicit a reciprocal response by the ally." (2) "When a state fears entrapment, it will show a weaker commitment to the ally to prevent the ally from being intransigent toward the adversary." and (3) "The optimal strategy in the alliance game is to maximize one's security from the alliance while minimizing one's obligations to it." These are logical and well thought-out and can be applied, even in the situation of a tighter alliance, as I will suggest below.
The close examination of the four periods mentioned above are handled in an interesting, skillful, and convincing way. Each period is divided up into the relevant and significant activities that occur in and among the three states involved. Ample footnotes, clear tables, and a solid bibliography (mostly in English but with a number of works in Korean) convince this reader that the coverage is accurate, authentic, and complete. The whole book makes interesting reading and the English is impeccable.
In this way the "quasi-alliance" concept is defined in a historical context. This invites speculation on the future, which Cha indulges in in the last chapter which he entitles, "Conclusion: Quasi Allies or Adversaries in the Post-Cold War Era?" Cha concludes, "As deep as historical animosity and emotionalism may run, they are not in the long term all-determining in state behavior." (The last sentence of the book.) So we can expect closer cooperation in the future.
In this reviewer's eyes, it is regrettable that the author did not end up with a wider vision of the future. He criticizes the "balancing" view of international relations (which says that the power of one state must be increased to balance the increased power of another state), based on changes in feelings of insecurity, which vary over time. But he does not go further and suggest how a united Korea (even if not as a unitary state), Japan, and the United States could cooperate, not only among themselves but necessarily with China (and even Russia) to form a new security system for the area of the North Pacific-one that is based not on a balance of power, as such, but on common accommodations for maintaining all-around trust and thus no resort to military force.
How about considering a kind of North Pacific Treaty Organization (NPTO) or a Northeast Asia Treaty Organization (NEATO) (which might be easier to pronounce)? NATO started as an alliance directed against a supposedly expanding Soviet Union, but now it still exists, even though it has lost its original raison d'être. This means that a NEATO would not have to have an enemy, as such, either. If such an organization were to come into being, it could handle security concerns that might arise among its members by institutionalized regular meetings aimed at making military capabilities and any changes in them transparent for all members to discuss, so that when any single member began to get out of alignment with the original strengths which all members could live with, all the other members could exert pressure to bring that member back into line. It would thus work automatically to self-adjust not just the original constellation but consciously to work for simultaneous and gradual arms control and arms reduction among all of its members.
This might first be possible after the achievement of a working relationship between North and South Korea, maybe as a loose two-member confederation, which would reduce armaments on both sides and allow a healthy level of trade and travel between the two sides, while each side would retain its own "system" until the North would become stronger economically and in the process benefit the South as well by trade and a cheaper labor supply. Such a dispensation could be based on the "agreements" signed between North and South Korea at the end of l990 and early l991, which soon broke down but can be revived.
A "weak" Korea would relieve worries by China and Japan (as well as the U.S.), but this new Korea would not want to be weak without treaty guarantees from its neighbors plus the United States, whereby all involved would reduce their armaments in the area, while guaranteeing the boundaries of all involved. Of course, the present points of dispute, such as the Tokto/Tsushima and Diaoyutai/Senkaku Islands would have to be handled in some way, such as by joint development or non-development. Then, cooperation in all areas, from mutual agreements on environmental protection, disease control, and terrorism, to nuclear power could develop on an area basis. Northeast Asia might then put together its own form of a European Union.
While Cha did not consider such speculations, a reading of his book can easily inspire them. Thus this book not only creates a new building block for the construction of a more scientific approach to international relations theory, but also inspires the reader to look into the future farther than the author did.
Citation:
Totten, George Oakley III 2000
Review of Sung Chul Yang, Victor D. Cha, Alignment Despite Antagonism: The United States-Korea-Japan Security Triangle (2000)
Korean Studies Review 2000, no. 11
Electronic file: http://koreanstudies.com/ks/ksr/ksr00-11.htm
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