► The ROK-US Alliance has greatly contributed to achieving its original goal- deterring North Korea’s nuclearization and maintaining the stability on the Korea Peninsula.

► However, the current competition between the US and Chinese networks, including North Korea problem, is weakening the liberal international order that the ROK-US alliance has been positioned over the past 70 years.

► South Korea should expand its network in the Indo-Pacific region to achieve the Yoon administration’s foreign policy vision of a global pivotal state. The ROK-US alliance can be a starting point to build regional networks in a rules-based order.

Following the signing of the 1953 Mutual Defense Treaty Between the United States and the Republic of Korea, the two countries have been cooperating to respond to a range of asymmetrical threats such as nuclear, missile, and cyber threats, as well as conventional warfare like the Korean War. Moreover, the signing of the United States-Korea Free Trade Agreement as well as efforts to expand people-to-people exchange, restructure supply chains, and cooperate on advanced technology have further developed the partnership into a so-called comprehensive strategic alliance. It's undeniable that over the past 70 years, the ROK-US alliance has greatly contributed to achieving its original goal - maintaining stability on the Korean Peninsula. Of course, this does not mean that there have been no periods of conflict, but the governments and people of both countries still have a positive view of the role and the necessity of the ROK-US alliance.

However, now in 2023, the alliance has come face-to-face with a strategic environment in East Asia rife with uncertainty. In addition to North Korea's increasing military threats, unprecedentedly multipolarized great power competition is infiltrating military and economic domains, ideological landscape, advanced technological development, and evengovernance building. The North Korea problem is also shaped by great power competition, making it increasingly difficult to resolve. Ultimately, this competition is contributing to the weakening of the liberal international order in which the ROK-US alliance has been positioned over the past 70 years. Then, is the current ROK-US alliance prepared to withstand the challenges of the next 70 years? While President Yoon Suk-yeol's visit to the United States is significant in and of itself, it should also serve as an opportunity to provide a blueprint for the future ROK-US alliance.

Just a few years ago, in the midst of a full-blown US-China competition, some countries chose to pursue a hedging strategy, seeking to minimize the potential risks that can arise in the course of great power competition rather than choosing a particular side. Countries adopt such a hedging strategy because it is difficult to determine the winner of US-China competition, and this can be an option worth considering for middle powers which seek to maintain external autonomy amongst great powers. However, in the long run, hedging does nothing to put an end to great power competition, and as great power competition intensifies, the space for hedging shrinks. Moreover, as an authoritarian revisionist state, China is not only disrupting the rules-based international order, but also coercively expanding its exclusive sphere of influence in the Indo-Pacific region. Before seriously considering a hedging strategy, countries in the region should consider whether China's changes to the status quo align with their own country's interests. The same goes for South Korea. Moreover, South Korea must also consider what role the ROK-US alliance can play in this current phase of great power competition.

President Yoon Suk-yeol declares the ROK-US alliance is "based on universal values," expanding the scope of cooperation beyond existing security cooperation to include the areas of values and technology. He is also expanding networking with like-minded countries in the Indo-Pacific. President Yoon's stance clearly demonstrates how South Korea’s strategic choice is being reoriented amid great power competition. Indeed, in recent years, the US and its major allies have been supplementing the existing alliance system through the formation of various networks. Ultimately, through various forms of minilateral cooperation, from sharing interests and threat perceptions to pooling capacities, the US and its allies are striving to ensure that the security architecture they have built is resilient, and to resist the revisionism and strengthen the rules-based order. To some extent, it would be more accurate to look at the current great power competition as a competition between the US and Chinese networks, rather than reducing it to a mere competition between just the US and China.

In fact, countries both in and outside of the Indo-Pacific have recently been promoting various types of minilateral cooperation. Some already well-known examples include the Quad and AUKUS, which aims to promote cooperation on the construction of nuclear-powered submarines. There are also various regional networks that do not include the US. For instance, the UK, Japan, and Italy launched the Global Combat Air Program to develop sixth-generation fighter jets, and, to this end, the three countries agreed to cooperate to lower export controls, conduct technology transfers, and share production capabilities. Moreover, existing minilaterals are also gradually expanding. For example, there have been discussions on expanding the Quad to a Quad Plus format and including France in AUKUS.

China is not resisting this shift as much as expected, as these networks are essentially meant to balance China's miliary modernization and arms build-up. To make matters worse, the goal of China's military modernization is to project its power in the Indo-Pacific region, which increases pressure on littoral countries in the region. As a result, these networks have been created based on the shared perception that changes to the status quo in the Indo-Pacific are not only the concern of the United States, and that US efforts alone may not be enough to restore the previous status quo. Furthermore, more attention should be given to the fact that countries within the Indo-Pacific region are forming coalitions through cooperation with European countries. Considering that the Indo-Pacific theater is a place where competition overwhelmingly takes place in the sea and air, and that the region has seen the most significant changes to the status quo, the recent trend of coalition-building is inevitable.

Meanwhile, despite being located in the Indo-Pacific region and being a relevant country when it comes to great power competition, South Korea has been excluded from this networking process. While the US-Korea alliance prioritizes deterring North Korea's military provocations and seeking stability on the Korean Peninsula, it is unclear whether these goals can be achieved, being noticeably inseparable from great power competition in the region. For instance, China and Russia regularly veto UN Security Council resolutions to place sanctions on North Korea. This is because both of these countries prioritize balance of power on the Korean peninsula over the denuclearization of North Korea. In this case, it is much more preferable for South Korea to expand its networks in the Indo-Pacific region, which would enable Korea to not only strengthen deterrence against the North, but also to gain more leverage over countries surrounding the Korean Peninsula.

Putting aside the North Korea issue, the expansion of these networks also goes hand in hand with the Yoon administration's foreign policy vision of a global pivotal state. The status of a global pivotal state can be obtained not merely through diplomacy, but through a certain capability for and willingness to maintain a rules-based order in the region, along with an alignment with other countries to achieve this vision. In other words, maintaining stability on the Korean Peninsula and implementing the vision of a global pivotal state can be achieved in the process of building networks in a rules-based order. The ROK-US alliance can serve as a starting point for such networks. The vision for the future of the alliance should be to develop it into a partnership that can contribute to restoring the rules-based order and establishing a regional architecture to support it.