This photo, taken on Oct. 17, 2024, shows Victor Cha, president of the Geopolitics and Foreign Policy Department and Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, speaking during a forum in Seoul. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
WASHINGTON, March 27 (Korea Bizwire) — The alliance between South Korea and the United States is in a “quiet crisis,” a prominent U.S. expert said Thursday, pointing to a series of recent developments, including the absence of leader-level contact and Seoul’s exclusion from the Pentagon chief’s ongoing Indo-Pacific trip.
Victor Cha, Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), made the remarks as South Korea continues to be in a period of political uncertainty following President Yoon Suk Yeol’s short-lived martial law declaration and his subsequent impeachment in December.
“There is a quiet crisis in the U.S.-Korea alliance right now,” he said in an online CSIS forum. “Nobody’s really talking about it or anything. But if you look at the DOE listing, the absence of any sort of high-level contact, the tariffs … Hegseth is skipping Korea.”
He was referring to South Korea’s recently unveiled placement on the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Sensitive and Other Designated Countries List — a designation that some fear would affect bilateral science and technology cooperation. The list includes North Korea, China, Russia and Iran.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Indo-Pacific trip devoid of a stop in South Korea has deepened concerns over the prospects of bilateral security coordination. His predecessor, Lloyd Austin, also skipped Seoul during his trip to Asia in December.
Cha also mentioned U.S. President Donald Trump’s nomination of Elbridge Colby as the under secretary of defense for policy. He anticipated that when the Senate confirms Colby, there will “almost certainly” be pressure on Seoul to move to “strategic flexibility.”
Strategic flexibility refers to the United States leveraging part of the 28,500-strong U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) for broader regional security roles rather than limiting it only to defending South Korea against persistent North Korean threats.
During an interview with Yonhap News Agency last year, Colby called for a USFK overhaul to make it “more relevant” to handling China-related contingencies rather than being held “hostage” to countering North Korean challenges.
In addition, Cha pointed out the possibility of Trump demanding a rise in Seoul’s share of the cost for stationing American troops in South Korea under a cost-sharing deal, called the Special Measures Agreement.
Noting the political crisis triggered by Yoon’s martial law attempt, Cha said that it won’t get resolved unless there is an election to pick his successor. The Constitutional Court is expected to decide whether to reinstate or unseat him from office in coming weeks.
“If the court makes a decision (that) he’s reinstated, it’s just going to be the crisis. It is just going to get worse,” he said. “There will be demonstrations on the street. All the political energy will go into blocking Yoon as much as they could on the budget, on demonstrations in the National Assembly.”
(Yonhap)
