Convergence and Divergence of U .S. and South Korean Strategies toward North Korea s Nuclear Program

Over the last decade and a half, both U.S.-North Korea and inter-Korean relations exhibited a pendulum swing between periods of confrontation and accommodation. Between the u.s. and South Korea, there emerged both divergence and convergence in the strategies toward North Korea. ThÏs paper seeks to explain the convergence and divergence of South Korean and U.S. strategies toward North Korea s nuclear program on the basis of a theoretical framework that is derived from Robert Jervis’s (1976) discussion of e spiral model and deterrence theory, and Glenn Snyder s (1984, 1997) liance security dilemma between abandonment and entrapment. The major argument of this paper is that the convergence and divergence of U.S. and South Korean strategies toward North Korea can be explned by each alliance rnernber s belief about North Korea’s intentions, the nature of its dernand, and the relative costs of concessions and rnilitary conflict. Each alliance rnernber s strategy toward North Korea is 혀so constr따ned by the presence of an liance security dilernrna in the forrn of two dangers - entraprnent and abandonrnent.