The United States is advancing adjustment of its global posture, including the US forces in Korea (USFK), in light of a new global strategy after the war on Iraq. The ongoing change of the USFK is logically accepted because there exist calls for a new means of readiness against new threats (i.e., terrorism and WMD) to the international society. However, to the eyes of South Koreans, the USFK relocation should be a radical change as it surpasses the existing traditional concept of military deterrence against North Korea. It would be fair to say that the USFK relocation and its repercussions for South Korean security are mainly driven by the U.S. policy change toward Korean Peninsula. At the beginning stage of the USFK relocation, this study attempts to raise three main arguments. First, Korea should exactly understand the essential characteristics of the current USFK reduction and relocation process before implementing any policy change as it is quite distinct from those of previous cases of USFK adjustment. South Korean policymakers should be aware of the new implications brought by the USFK adjustment in terms of future types of military conflict with North Korea, concept of deterrence, and geographical / political span of the ROK-U.S. alliance. Second, status and visions of the ROK-U.S. alliance will inevitably be changed according to how the USFK relocation proceeds, and all of which will be determined by the Korean government's attitude and strategy. This is so because what the ROK wants to do with the USFK relocation has yet to be articulated, while the U.S. positions and plans regarding how to develop its alliance relationship with the ROK is relatively well known. Third, issues such as land procurement and cost-sharing for moving the Yongsan bases and the second division are becoming sensitive issues in the Korean society, but they should realize that these are just minor issues. The author stresses that the ROK should care more about recovering mutual confidence of the alliance and preparing measures for filling the power vacuum that will be caused by the USFK relocation. The 9·11 incident became a critical momentum for the United States to believe that international security environment and threat has been fundamentally changed and it needs to transform the global posture from large-size permanent deployment on a few major allies to small-size flexible deployment on many strategic regions and countries. The U.S. forces abroad now need to be more light and mobile in order to more effectively respond to asymmetric threats inflicted by unspecified actors and unspecified means. The reshuffling of the U.S. forces in the Asia-Pacific region represents the notion of the Global Posture Review (GPR), but among other countries, the relocation of the U.S. forces in Korea will undergo most significant transformation in magnitude and functions. While the roles and missions of the U.S. forces in other Asian countries (including Japan and the Philippines) had been adjusted and modified since the early stage of the post Cold War period, the USFK still has maintained the fifty year-long Cold War type deployment posture given North Korean factors. There are four previous cases of USFK reduction (in years of 1954-1965, 1971, 1978, 1992), but the current process of USFK relocation bears fundamentally different notions because it is not only downsizing the number of the USFK but also moving it back to southern direction. This change implies that the common goal of the ROK-U.S. alliance will not be confined to deterring North Korean threat but will begin to search for some regional roles. The alliance's deterrence readiness against North Korea will be still pursued through achieving superiority in capability, not in numbers. Korean government fully understand this notion and positively respond to the U.S. moves on the reduction and relocation issues,
Ⅰ. 서론
Ⅱ. 미국의 신안보전략과 해외주둔미군 재배치
Ⅲ. 주한미군 재배치 추진현황과 주요 쟁점
Ⅳ. 주한미군 재배치가 지역안보질서에 미칠 영향
Ⅴ. 결론 및 향후 정책과제