Lee's Pragmatic Diplomacy Reshapes South Korea-US Alliance
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- PAC-3 and THAAD missile defense systems were unilaterally redeployed from East Asian allies to the Middle Eastern theater amid Trump's war against Iran, according to the author, leaving allies exposed.
- President Lee Jae Myung has pursued a 'Pragmatic Diplomacy Centered on National Interest' strategy in response to Trump's erratic behavior, favoring flexibility over rigid principle.
- Trump's call for allies to join a coalition against Iran's Strait of Hormuz blockade was met with a lukewarm response, since allies viewed the crisis as manufactured by Trump himself.
- At the recent G7 meeting, Trump asked Lee Jae Myung if South Korea could urgently build 10 naval warships for the US; Lee responded affirmatively, citing the 70-year alliance and South Korea's defense capacity.
- South Korea has emerged as the world's fourth-largest defense exporter, capable of mass-producing heavy weaponry vital for modern and future warfare.
- The OPCON transition — discussed since 2007 but stalled by political timidity — is now being pushed forward, requiring the ROK military to take the lead in combined operations against North Korea.
- USFK Commander General Xavier Brunson made provocative comments describing the Korean Peninsula as a 'dagger' aimed at China, prompting the author to call for ROK forces to 'take the steering wheel' and guide the alliance.
Why it matters: South Korea, now the world's fourth-largest defense exporter, is using its defense industrial capacity as diplomatic leverage — Trump already requested 10 warships at the G7 meeting — while pushing the OPCON transition, first discussed in 2007, to fundamentally rebalance the 70-year alliance from dependency to complementarity.
