Book Description

Examines intra-alliance politics between the United States, Japan, and South Korea. In an age of increasingly complex security situations around the world, it is essential that students and practitioners understand alliances and minilateral security mechanisms. Partnership within Hierarchy examines, in depth, the troubled evolution of the US–Japan–South Korea security triangle from the Cold War period to the present time. Referencing a voluminous amount of declassified documents in three different languages, Sung Chull Kim, through six case studies, delves into the common questions arising in different historical periods, such as who should pay costs, what to commit, and why. Burden sharing and commitment, Kim shows, emerged as the main subject of competing expectations and disagreements arising between the capable middle power Japan and the weak power South Korea. Kim details how the dominant power, the United States, has controlled the red lines and intervened in the disputes, the result of which is in most instances a balancing effect for the triangle. In this vein, he persuasively accounts for why historical disputes between Japan and South Korea, which submerged during the Cold War, reverberate today when asymmetry between the two is substantially balanced. “This book adds a thoughtful framework to our understanding of the United States–Japan–South Korea triangle over six decades. It also serves the field well by linking six critical decisions in Japan–Korea relations over this time period and the US impact to the overall framework.” — Gilbert Rozman, author of The Sino-Russian Challenge to the World Order: National Identities, Bilateral Relations, and East versus West in the 2010s “Sung Chull Kim provides a fascinating narrative for the evolution of the triangular relationship.” — Terence Roehrig, coauthor of South Korea’s Rise: Economic Development, Power, and Foreign Relations