Evans J.R. Revere, a Northeast Asia specialist with the State Department and the current Cyrus Vance Fellow in Diplomatic Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, posed a question that has been popping up in policy circles in Seoul and Washington lately. After all the United States and South Korea have accomplished together, why don’t both sides feel better about their relationship?

Then he suggested several possible answers. Generational changes in South Korea have seen the old political establishment give way to new actors and new thinking. The sense of U.S.-Korea solidarity, forged during the Korean War, has faded and the days when Seoul reflexively looked to Washington for leadership are gone. In the defense sphere, while U.S. forces continue to weigh heavily on the strategic scales, South Korea is assuming more and more responsibility for its own security. Additionally, Korea’s rise from “economic basket case” to economic powerhouse has imbued the body politic with new confidence. From this more self-assured outlook, South Koreans regard North Korea as an object of pity, not of danger. The U.S. assessment of North Korea has stayed static. That difference has undermined the shared threat perception that has been the foundation of the alliance for five decades.

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

About the Speaker

Paradoxically, as their self-confidence has risen, South Koreans have grown more ambivalent about their relationship with the U.S. Many feel that there has never been a better time to lay the groundwork for Korean reunification, making them especially sensitive to any U.S. words or deeds that seem unfriendly to the process.

The U.S. has already taken some positive steps to assuage South Korean sensibilities, such as committing to the withdrawal of the headquarters of USFK from central Seoul, where it has become a lightening rod for critics of the U.S. presence in South Korea. And presidents Bush and Roh have made progress in drawing the two nations closer, vowing at the November 2005 APEC summit in Pusan to begin a new strategic dialog.

For the alliance to continue to thrive, however, Revere said that the U.S. has to affirm its support for Korean unification in ever clearer terms, and both parties need to find a justification for their partnership that’s not based on what they have done together in the past, but on what they can do together in the future.

U.S. Relations with the Korean Peninsula: Challenges and Prospects

with

Evans J.R. Revere
Cyrus Vance Fellow in Diplomatic Studies
Council on Foreign Relations

A career diplomat and senior Foreign Service officer, Evans J.R. Revere is currently a Cyrus Vance Fellow in Diplomatic Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. Immediately prior to this assignment he was acting assistant secretary and principal deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. And prior to that, he was the U.S. State Department’s director for Japanese Affairs, responsible for the day-to-day management of U.S. relations with Japan. From 2000 to 2003 he was deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul. He previously served as director for Korean Affairs, where he managed relations with both halves of the Korean Peninsula, in addition to serving as the U.S. government's primary day-to-day liaison with the North Korean government. Revere is a three-time winner of the State Department's Superior Honor Award and has received the Department of State's Meritorious Honor Award. He received a commendation from former Secretary of State Albright for his contributions to her October 2000 visit to North and South Korea. Revere holds an honors degree in East Asian studies from Princeton University. He speaks fluent Japanese, Korean and Chinese.