[특집] 한국 대외전략의 기저

Major Underpinnings of the ROK's External Strategy with an Emphasis on Security Dimension

Since December last year the IMF economic crisis has been hitting hard the South Korean economy, resulting in cutting down drastically its erstwhile economic prowess and, thus, in bringing about somewhat serious negative impacts on such non-economic areas as defense, diplomacy, and security, let alone economic sectors. It would be all the more difficult externally for South Korea, because the strategic consequences of the current economic crisis in East Asia in which South Korea as an individual country has been directly involving, could be far-reaching and serious, and would, provide, therefore, the latter with much uncertain and unstable regional security environment in East Asia, let alone coping with various sorts of security threats from North Korea, which has long been gripped by the serious socio-economic crisis as a 'failed' or 'failing' state regime. Against this backdrop, this paper aims in the main at identifying the major underpinnings of the ROK's external strategy especially in terms of security dimension, in the midst of the IMF crisis. In order to meet this research objective. we attempted to analyze in this paper. first of all. manifold, either manifest or potential. constraints coming from the current IMF economic crisis as regards the South Korea's conducting foreign as well as security policies, especially in terms of a broadened concept of comprehensive security rather than the military-oriented, narrow-scoped security one. Therefore, we have not directly dealt with defense or military policies in this paper. As a result of the analysis along the line of research suggested above. we have discerned several crucial research findings such as: (1) The current economic crisis in East Asia including South Korea seems to be a defining event of the post-Cold War interstate order in the region. especially marking the start of the second phase of the post-Cold-War regional strategic order, which will be more uncertain and changeable than the previous period from 1989-97. The strategic consequences of the IMF economic crisis in East Asia could be far-reaching: the South Korea's drastically curtailed economic capacity in dealing with long crisis-ridden North Korea, and inter alia. the economic downturn alters a central factor in the East Asian regional stability and cohesion, as underpinned by economic growth during last several decades. (2) Given a damaging impact of the current economic crisis in East Asia on maintaining regional stability and cohesion, and crucial strategic implications emanating from the regional economic crisis as such. the security environment in the region. which connotes the South Korea's external security environment. will be much uncertain and unstable in the years to come. It is in this context that South Korea has been doubly burdened, since its constraints as regards the pursuing of foreign and security policies, owing to the IMF economic crisis, would be all the more pronounced and perhaps increased because of a much uncertain and unstable security environment in East Asia. (3) It is certain that the current economic crisis in East Asia, as well as that in South Korea, is likely to make North Korea more difficult in managing to get food aids from the outside, Perhaps this situation may press the Kim Jong-il regime in North Korea to take either an option of military adventurism or a somewhat reconciliatory posture toward the South. Given several factors currently bearing upon both internal and external situations in North Korea such as: namely. internally on the one hand, a topmost priority of maintaining the Kim Jong-il regime and the really serious socia-economic crisis within the North Korean society; externally on the other, the 'soft-landing' policies of the four major powers ( the USA, China, Japan and Russia) toward North Korea, and the Kim Dae-jung government's 'Sunshine' policy vis-a-vis the North,