The latest episode of The President’s Inbox is live! This week, Jim sat down with Scott Snyder, senior fellow for Korea studies and director of the program on U.S.-Korea policy at the Council. They discussed Scott’s new book, The United States-South Korea Alliance: Why It May Fail and Why It Must Not.

Here are five highlights from the discussion:

1.) The U.S.-South Korea alliance is critical to the U.S. interest in preventing China from dominating the Indo-Pacific region. Scott argued that the United States is better equipped to “defend its interests” in East Asia with the “alliance architecture” that includes the U.S.-South Korea alliance as well as the U.S.-Japan alliance. The alliances help deter aggressive Chinese behavior that could roil the region.

2.) The alliance enhances South Korea’s security and international diplomatic influence. South Korea faces threats from North Korea as well as from China. Seoul’s problem, as Scott put it, is that “South Korea historically has been the weakest country in its neighborhood, and therefore, it needs a strong protector.” The United States fills that need because it too faces security challenges in the region. A strong relationship between the two countries also elevates South Korea’s global prominence.

3.) The alliance with the United States raises two very different fears in South Korea. The U.S.-South Korea alliance has its critics in South Korea. Some South Koreans fear entrapment, that is, that the alliance will entangle the country in conflicts that have more to do with U.S. security concerns than South Korea’s, say, for example, over Taiwan. Other South Koreans fear abandonment, that is, that the United States will not come to their aid should North Korea attack. This fear turns on the fact that North Korea has nuclear weapons and South Korea doesn’t. If North Korea attacks South Korea with conventional weapons, Washington might decide to sit on the sidelines rather than risk a North Korean nuclear attack on the United States. For this reason, Scott noted that “the really big issue of the moment or for this time is really related to the credibility of U.S. security guarantees in the face of a nuclear North Korea.”

4.) The United States and South Korea do not always see eye to eye on foreign policy. Scott characterized Taiwan as an “area that is still a work in progress.” Scott pointed out that “South Korean ambivalence” could be chalked up to the “immediate threat from North Korea.” He acknowledged, however, that “South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has been rather forward leaning compared to many of his predecessors in terms of being willing to state clearly South Korea's interest in peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”

5.) Political polarization at home could stress U.S.-South Korea relations further. Tensions flared during the Donald Trump administration when Trump demanded that South Korea pay substantially more to support U.S. troops based there and complained that South Korea’s trade practices cost American jobs. Scott characterized the current partnership between the Biden and Yoon administrations as “robust and resilient.” There is no guarantee, however, that the alliance is immune to renewed “pressures from domestic political polarization on both sides.” The way Scott put it, “in the event of a power transition in either Washington or Seoul, there may emerge tensions that could actually greatly hamper and maybe even paralyze alliance cooperation.” If Trump or someone who shares Trump’s trade and foreign policy views assumes the presidency in January 2025, cooperation between the two countries could lessen. Similarly, South Korea’s next president may not favor a close relationship with the United States.

If you’re looking to learn more about the U.S.-South Korea relationship, check out Scott’s In Brief for CFR.org that explored the future of the seventy-year alliance.