Since the Cold War, East Asia has been one of the most dynamic regions in the world. Among actors in East Asia, South Korea has been of less interest to researchers who anticipate that South Korea, as a long standing ally of the USA, is expected to be involved in the US-led containment policy of China and North Korea. In many ways, the strategic choices of South Korea since the Cold War were not as expected. Materialistic explanations such as Realism theory or Alliance theories could not provide a context for South Korea's strategic choices. This study exploits strategic culture to fill the lacunae, and the ROK strategic military doctrine is chosen in order to explain its strategic choices since the Cold War. By choosing military doctrine at the strategic level it is hoped to show clearly the path of change in the strategy of the ROK since the Cold War. Cultural explanations as a supplement theoretical concept of materialistic theories are helpful in understanding the ROK's behaviour since the Cold War. This study establishes the relationship between strategic culture and military doctrine, and also tries to build the connection between military doctrine and force structure. This study uses political culture, geography and history as the main sources of strategic culture, and explores how changes in these three factors affect changes in strategic culture; it also investigates how changed strategic culture leads to change in military doctrine and force structure. Strategic culture is certainly not the only factor driving the ROK military doctrine. However, it becomes a significant one in the post-Cold War era. This study shows that strategic culture is increasingly important in order to understand the strategic choices of South Korea.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:659012 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Kim, Euihak |
| Publisher | University of Reading |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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