Abstract  

Up until the current period, the crucial elements of change in international security can be summa-rized as the power change among the major actors, change in the nature of war, change in the structure of the economy, and the entrance of core actors following regional integration. The recent appear-ance of a complex world order linked to “the rise of the rest” and a multi-centered/non-centered net-work world order are putting pressure on the need for change in both understanding the security threats and developing military strategies.

The Global Financial Crisis is creating further multi-polarization of the international order. Ri-chard Haas, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, has defined the characteristic of the in-ternational order in the twenty-first century as the “age of non-polarity.” In such an order no one, two, or multiple states are dominant; rather it consists of various actors that possess diverse types of power. It is possible to say that the structure of non-polarity will lead to an international network order, becoming a widespread phenomenon. In the mili-tary security dimension it has already brought about multimodal, multivariant and multinodal aspects or hybrid threats. Such a complex security environment requires a “whole-of-government (whole-of-nation)” approach which combines all components of national power including military power. The Obama administration believes that transnational problems in the twenty-first century world order can only be solved through a network approach.

The Obama administration’s National Security Strategy 2010 stated its goal for rebuilding Ameri-can leadership as “building at home, shaping abroad.” In order for this to succeed the United States must see the world as it is and respond ac-cordingly. The truth is that no country can manage all global problems by itself. Washington must pre-pare for the future through cooperation with coun-tries capable of bringing about change. A look at the U.S. Department of Defense’s recent strategy review reports, such as the Quadrennial Defense Review, Nuclear Posture Review, and Ballistic Mis-sile Defense Review, show how the United States generally defines the type and range of threat, and instead of choosing a single method to deal with it they propose flexible strategies according to the situation and context.

Ever since the financial crisis, there have been two identifiable factors regulating American strat-egy. The first factor is the rise of China and its ag-gressive conversion; the second is domestic politi-cal pressures related to reducing the national de-fense budget and the Obama administration’s do-mestic agenda. The rise of China has been judged to be the greatest challenge for American diplomacy in the following decades, and the administration has identified relations with China as its most im-portant bilateral relationship. Washington wants Beijing to take on a more constructive role in the current international order; however concerns re-main on its rapid military modernization. China has been expanding its strategic capabilities to reach the Indian Ocean and Western Pacific, while the military balance with Taiwan is steadily going in China’s favor despite increasing economic ex-changes across the Straits. The United States is also concerned about China’s enhancing capability fo-cused on “anti-access/area-denial.” The failure to adapt to these new strategies will limit the U.S. movements in the region.

The other constraining factor that the United States faces is the pressure to make cuts in the na-tional defense budget. This is certainly an afteref-fect of the protracted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but apart from this it is clearly abnormal for a single country to account for almost half of the world’s total defense spending. Furthermore, following the financial crisis it will be difficult for the national defense budget to continue expanding in the way it has been doing. Still it would appear that the U.S. defense budget will not be facing considerable curtailments any time soon since its remains committed to the war efforts in Afghanistan.

The U.S. response is indeed its own choice, but a large part of it is also due to the inevitable change in the international environment. An economy in recession, President Obama’s declining public support, and the negative results from the 2010 mid-term elections are all simultaneously functioning as factors for change. The future now depends on how swiftly the United States carries out “Building at Home” and recovers its confidence through “Shaping Abroad.” In this context, South Korea must search for a new vision that will allow it to cope with strategic adjustments by the United States as well as China’s increasing importance in Northeast Asia.

The full text in Korean is available here