제2차 세계대전 이후 세계체제 변동과 한미관계

The Post-World War Ⅱ World System and The Korea-US relationship

Sungho Kang’s paper explores the characteristic, the process of changes, and various factors of changes in the Korea-US relationship in the post-WWII world system. Korea has been industrialized and has been democratized simultaneously during last 60 years. Based on a strategy to contain Communism and secure the US interests in the East, the US was engaged in the Korean peninsular and defended Korea against the socialist countries. The Korea-US relationship is distinguished into three periods. The first period is from 1945 to 1969/1973, the second period is from 1969/1973 to 1987, and the third period is from 1987 to present. In general the Korea-US relationship has been moving from dependency to interdependency because of the rapid growth of Korea since 1945. The rapid development of Korea is the result of not a single factor but of complicated interactions of various factors from inside and outside of Korea. In order to estimate correctly the development of Korea and cope effectively with the new forming order of East Asia, we considered various factors: the US foreign policy in Korea based on its security strategy in East Asia, the economic development led by a strong state, the growth of democratic movements of Korean people, and the inheritance of advanced traditional society. Internal factors have been becoming more important in the rapid and sustainable development of Korea, especially since 1987