America`s Role for Peace on the Korean Peninsula

The US did not manage well some of its strategic relations with East Asia and Russia in the 1990s, thus, particularly at this pivotal turning point, must exercise considerable caution as well as wisdom in Korea. The paper examines US foreign policy and finds a pattern of perceptions by other nations that the US has become increasingly self interested now that it no longer confronts the Soviet Union. US policies in East Asia (e.g., the Asian financial crisis) and Russia suggest that a neomercantilist impulse rather than crusade for global economic development, democracy and human rights has dominated US foreign and trade policy. Moreover, NATO expansion and the drive for national missile defense run the risk of further alienating Russia and China and upsetting the strategic balance. It is suggested that a corruption of American`s original sense of national interest has occurred, most clearly evident in post-Cold War policies. The author underscores that the US cannot effectively lead devoid of a sense of public-mindedness that goes beyond pure calculations of self-interest. The implications of American`s shift away from its long-held role of moral leadership are examined for the Korean peninsula. In general, US policy toward the DPRK has been characterized by "incrementalism," evidencing little willingness to engage the North on other than a midbureaucratic level, insufficient to improve relations and ease tensions. The US should constrain any anxiety over the potential security implications of inter-Korean agreements, and permit a natural evolution of roles and responsibilities in the creation of permanent peace in Korea.