Two traps and Korean grand strategy

Seoul is in a pivotal position in Asian and global affairs and a strong demonstration of confidence in the American alliance system can help to dissuade challenger states from thinking that the U.S.-led order is in decline.

Michael GreenThe author is CEO of the U.S. Studies Centre at the University of Sydney and Henry A. Kissinger Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

The dynamics of international relations in Asia can be captured in any one era by the buzz words that policymakers and politicians borrow from clever scholars. One great example is Harvard Professor Graham Allison’s popularization of the term “the Thucydides trap” to describe the peril of U.S.-China conflict. Allison’s “trap” leverages the Greek statesman-philosopher Thucydides’ observation that rising powers (like Sparta then and China now) almost inevitably clash with the status quo power (Athens then America now). The tragedy is that the great powers do not know how to escape from that trap.

Allison’s recommendation a decade ago was that the United States and China establish a bipolar condominium as the best escape. This idea appealed so much to Chinese leader Xi Jinping that he had all Communist Party leaders read translations of Allison’s work and then proposed to President Barack Obama a “New Model of Great Power Relations” in 2013 in which the United States would defy history by negotiating a grand bargain to resolve potential triggers of bilateral war. Under Xi’s framework, the United States would make compromises around Beijing’s so-called “core interests” to include Taiwan, Xinjiang, Tibet and later the East and South China Seas and the Yellow Sea. Since this would clearly involve forcing our closest allies to make concessions to China, I opposed the idea. In fact, the U.S. Senate invited me and Allison (who is a friend) to make our cases in public testimony. Eventually the Obama administration abandoned the idea but the structural factors Thucydides and Allison point to have not gone away.

The newer “trap” now making the rounds is the “America trap” introduced by Brookings scholar Robert Kagan. Like Allison, Kagan looks at history to anticipate the geopolitical dynamics that are unfolding. His conclusion is that rising authoritarian powers almost inevitably misunderstand the depth of American power and resolve and make the self-defeating mistake of attacking the United States or its friends. So, for example, in World War One the Germans assumed that an immature and far distant America would never want to become embroiled in the European balance of power and thus made the mistake of unrestricted warfare against American shipping to Britain thereby forcing Woodrow Wilson to declare war. What might have been a stalemate on the Western Front ended up in German defeat because of the surge of fresh American troops in 1918. Japan and Germany then repeated that mistake in 1941. Japan assumed American isolationism indicated a weakness and disinterest in Asia that could be exploited with a decisive attack at Pearl Harbor. Hitler then declared war on the United States because, like the Japanese, he thought American society to consumer-oriented and lazy to rally in response. The result was total war and the unconditional surrender of both regimes. Stalin, Mao and Kim Il Sung fell into the American trap again in June 1950, and while their own regimes did not collapse, they did provoke the Americans to establish the most formidable alliance network in the history of Asia –which later did contribute to the end of Soviet communism and may yet spell the end of the DPRK and CCP (even if active regime change is not current U.S. policy). Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is the most recent example of the American trap.

Why do totalitarian regimes fall for this trap? It is not because the Americans deliberately trick them into attacking, as some right-wing Japanese commentators claim about Pearl Harbor. One cause is the nature of totalitarian states, which come to view American politics and culture through the distorted lenses of their own ideology and therefore perceive diversity, debate, social progress, and political polarization as signs of decay rather than renewal.

A second cause is that totalitarian leaders tend to believe in the inevitability of the Thucydides dilemma even if they never read Thucydides himself. If conflict is inevitable, they conclude, it is better to strike America before it really organizes to compete and defeat their regional hegemonic ambitions.

The third cause of the America trap is the one that Kagan emphasizes most, and that is the American penchant for showing disinterest and lack of resolve vis-à-vis rising hegemonic challengers. Woodrow Wilson, for example, was adamant that the United States would not join the First World War. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was hampered by the America First movement’s isolationism and the public’s ambivalence about helping Britain and France resist Hitler. North Korea attacked because of the famous “Acheson line” which suggested the Truman administration would only respond to communist attacks on the First Island chain but not against Korea.

So what should Korea do about these two traps?

First, Seoul is in a pivotal position in Asian and global affairs and a strong demonstration of confidence in the American alliance system can help to dissuade challenger states from thinking that the U.S.-led order is in decline. Korea’s own deterrence measures on the peninsula are the priority, but the recent military exercises with the United States, Australia, Japan and others in Australia were a sign of real confidence and commitment to the overall alliance system.

Second, Seoul should not fall for the Thucydides trap. During the Park and Moon administration, the governments’ policies appeared predicated on the idea that a U.S.-China power rivalry would be the defining characteristic of Asian international affairs, ignoring the importance of Japan, Australia, India, and other states. This only reinforced Beijing’s confidence that its options were between condominium or war with America. By stepping into the Indo-Pacific strategic game, the Yoon administration reminds China that it is a more complicated game that requires China to take account of middle powers’ strategic interests and not just go through Washington.

Third, Korea can help to blunt Chinese misperceptions that the democratic process, even when flawed, is a sign of strategic weakness or lack of resolve. Korean activism on democracy under Yoon shows that key Asian states see universal norms as a source of strength and dynamism. Korean soft power demonstrates that successful states listen to their consumers.

Finally, Korea can quietly help the United States define competition strategies with Beijing that deter Chinese coercion and protect the democratic world’s most critical technologies, but in ways that do not lead to complete decoupling or other self-defeating measures that would reinforce the idea that conflict is inevitable.

In short, these are only “traps” when we let them become that way.