# South Korea between international orders For quite some time, I've been pointing out that South Korea's future requires some very serious open-minded political debate. Put simply, the ready-made diplomatic solutions that decision-makers once relied upon are no longer fit for purpose. The international order has transformed. What worked in the 1990s and 2000s, doesn't work two decades and two pointless wars later. Near everything South Korea took for granted in assessing, developing, and implementing policy has changed. So, as an academic with time to kill, I wrote two books about it. The first book, [_When South Korea Turns_](https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-92-6330-1), examines South Korea's strategic choices in the new international order. It argues, South Korea has three broad choices. The first is continuity: doubling down on the alliance with the United States and hoping that Washington can continue to guarantee South Korea's security. The second is adaptation: cashing out some of the benefits of the existing order and pursuing accommodation, neutrality, or strategic realignment. The third is self-reliance: going all in on South Korea's own capacity to defend itself, including the possibility of developing an independent nuclear deterrent. Ultimately, the book is about preparing for a future in which South Korea must make decisions that previous generations of policymakers were able to avoid. These choices are difficult and demand serious public debate--a debate which is incredibly polarizing and divisive. Hedging between the three pathways is the most likely outcome, but also potentially the worst. Not having the debate and not making a firm decision means letting it be made for you at the worst time. This leads us to the second book. The second book, *[Reframing Conflict in East Asia](https://www.routledge.com/Reframing-Conflict-in-East-Asia-Korea-Before-Taiwan/Robertson/p/book/9781041428220)*, argues that if the U.S. does decide to contest China in East Asia (and that's not a certainty), it makes more sense to do so on the Korean Peninsula than in the Taiwan area. This challenges the conventional wisdom that Taiwan is the inevitable centre of any future U.S.–China confrontation. Drawing on the politics, management, and economics of war, the book argues that Korea offers significant strategic advantages: established military alliances, integrated command structures, logistical infrastructure, clearer legal foundations, and greater opportunities to secure allied support and manage escalation. Taiwan, by contrast, presents enormous military and economic risks, with potentially catastrophic consequences for the global economy.  The book draws on the logic of offshore balancing and proxy warfare to ask a straightforward question: if Washington's objective is to prevent Chinese regional hegemony, where and how can it achieve that objective at the lowest possible cost? To put it crudely, fighting China to the last Korean, in much the same way as the U.S. has fought Russia to the last Ukrainian, makes more sense than contesting China thousands of miles from home with questionable legal, political, and military support. The logical outcome is that any conflict that starts with Taiwan will inevitably involve Korea. This brings us back to the first book and sheds light on South Korea's three strategic options of continuity, adaptation, and and self-reliance. To have the debate and to make a decision is much better than having it forced upon you when the shit hits the fan. Both books are an attempt to encourage the debate. They challenge assumptions that guided strategic thinking for decades and explore questions that policymakers have been able to avoid for way too long. And there lies the greatest consequence of the Trump Administration. Trump has managed to raise awareness that it's time to think about the post-American world. What worked two decades and two pointless wars ago, will not work tomorrow. *** Help a desperate academic - [Buy Me a Coffee](https://buymeacoffee.com/junotane)! ## Related articles - [[2026-05-12 Increasingly great middle powers?|Increasingly great middle powers?]] - [[2026-04-04 Trump in Beijing's Springtime?|Trump in Beijing's Springtime?]] - [[2026-04-02 Watch out middle powers, the tide is coming in!|Watch out middle powers, the tide is coming in!]]