[KS] KSR 2000-11: _Alignment Despite Antagonism: The United

[Stephen Epstein]

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_Alignment Despite Antagonism: The United States-Korea-Japan Security
Triangle_, by Victor D. Cha. 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 dŽtente (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'tre. 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 Victor D. Cha, _Alignment Despite Antagonism: The United
States-Korea-Japan Security Triangle_ (1999)
_Korean Studies Review_ 2000, no. 11
Electronic file: http://www.iic.edu/thelist/review/ksr00-11.htm