Introduction

The four years from 2016 through 2019 were the most eventful in the post-democratization and post-Cold War period of South Korean history. Three goals had defined the entirety […]

Tracking the Downswings in a ‘Virtual Alliance’: Japan’s Policy toward the Korean Peninsula over a Decade

This year, 2022, could be critical for Japan-ROK relations. The relationship has been in free fall for a decade—although there were a couple of moments at which the […]

Introduction

The period 2013-2015 in South Korean foreign policy was transformative for three reasons: (1) it exposed the fallacies in Seoul’s assumptions about the future of Northeast Asia more […]

A Trustpolitik approach to denuclearization and unification

Ever since the Korean War, North Korea has posed the most menacing and intractable national security challenge to the South. Every South Korean leader has tried to reduce […]

Trustpolitik, middle power diplomacy, and partisan narratives

On the heels of Park Geun-hye’s election—and the introduction of her “trustpolitik”—there was a sense that South Korean foreign policy was undergoing a sea change. After a dizzying […]

Managing four great powers

Succeeding another conservative, President Park Geun-hye was intent on seizing the initiative despite the difficult environment she faced as four leaders geared up for more active regional policies. […]

Negative Scenario II

Jennifer Lind has sketched positive prospects for South Korean-Japanese relations and the history issue. She broadly finds that geopolitical pressures will overwhelm historical narratives of animosity or re-write […]

Alliance Trilateralism at a Crossroads

South Korea is facing a nightmarish international environment, wholly unexpected as recently as 2015. Then the country was riding high in its foreign policy agenda: trustpolitik leading to […]

Country Report: Russia (March 2017)

On February 10, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs carried an Interfax interview with Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov on Russian Asia policies in the past year. He cited […]

Country Report: South Korea (March 2017)

In the first months of 2017, the cloud of impeachment hung heavily over South Korea’s foreign policy, while China’s anger at the THAAD deployment kept growing, and signs […]