More than ever, the Republic of Korea in 2012 finds itself in a security environment where there are many moving parts transitioning into an uncertain future: the relative decline of U.S. power and the post-September 11 emphasis on “strategic flexibility,” the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il and succession, a rising China and its increasingly assertive foreign policy, and Japan's political crisis and prolonged economic stagnation, just to name a few. What do these changes mean for South Korea's security now and in the future? How should it respond to the changing security landscape? The two edited volumes under review, Beyond North Korea edited by Kim, Shin, and Straub and The US-South Korea Alliance edited by Snyder, provide their careful analysis and useful insights into these questions. Given the tendency to discuss recent developments in South Korean security and defense posture mostly in a piecemeal fashion in policy reports and articles, the volumes’ comprehensive assessments are a welcome addition to the existing literature on the two Koreas, the U.S.-ROK alliance, and East Asian security in general.

The central theme of the two books is “looking to the future.” Beyond North Korea is noteworthy for casting South Korea's traditional security issues in a new light by evaluating how Seoul faces a new set of challenges with regard to North Korea, relations with Asian neighbors, and the U.S.-ROK alliance in the changing regional and global context. The later chapters also identify and address economy, demography, energy, and environment as nontraditional security threats to South Korea. The US-South Korea Alliance focuses more specifically on where the alliance between Seoul and Washington might head in the post-September 11 world, and how realistic and sustainable the 2009 Joint Vision Statement is when it comes to actual implementation. The Snyder volume is a valuable source of much-needed reality checks on various new issues related to ongoing and future bilateral cooperation within the framework the U.S.-ROK alliance. The chapters contain analyses of such issues as the maritime relationship, counterterrorism, nuclear nonproliferation, outer space, pandemics and biological threats, climate change, peacekeeping, post-conflict reconstruction, and development assistance.

There are three key interrelated issues that stand out when we think about assessing future security challenges to South Korea's security. First, a possible North Korean internal crisis has a potential to pose one of the most serious security threats to the two Koreas and their neighbors in the region. In Beyond North Korea, Byung Kwan Kim argues from a South Korean conservative perspective that the South Korean military should be prepared for North Korean contingencies and for the security of a unified Korea. Jongseok Lee, on the other hand, presents a more optimistic assessment that Pyongyang after the death of Kim Jong-Il is likely to adopt a policy of reform and opening for the sake of survival. In the Snyder volume, the chapters by Balbina Hwang and Michael Finnegan present the view that tightened U.S.-ROK alliance cooperation in the areas of peacekeeping and post-conflict stabilization and reconstruction can be conducive to managing North Korean contingencies in the future.

Second, against the backdrop of China's rise, Seoul faces a dilemma between expanding the U.S.-ROK alliance beyond deterring North Korean attacks and paying heed to Chinese concerns over such expansion. On the one hand, there is a need for Seoul and Washington to adapt the sixty-year-old alliance to the realities of the post-September 11 security environment by redefining its rationale and going beyond North Korea. On the other hand, contributions by Michael McDevitt, Jae Ho Chung, Donald Keyser, and others show that while Seoul is increasingly concerned about China's future intentions towards North Korean developments, it wants no part in a future conflict that involves China under the U.S. notion of “strategic flexibility.” In that regard, both volumes predict quite correctly that Seoul's handling of conflicting expectations and pressures from the U.S.-ROK alliance and China will be one of the major sources of South Korea's future security challenges.

Third, in conceptualizing South Korea's future security, the volumes are a reminder that there are pros and cons in approaching nontraditional transnational issues as security threats to be addressed in the alliance context. On the side of pros, along with South Korea's “Global Korea” concept, a comprehensive approach to the alliance based on mutual interests in nontraditional issues promotes human security, creates international public goods more efficiently, and upgrades Seoul's international profile as a result. On the side of cons, the “all-inclusiveness” of the South Korean concept of security can undermine the effectiveness in prioritizing tasks and budgets.

The US-South Korea Alliance, while not directly engaging in international relations theory building on alliance management, shows empirically the processes of how a traditional alliance originally designed to deter the Cold War adversaries may embark on transformations in the post-Cold War/post-September 11 environment. Taken together with case studies on the 1996–97 U.S.-Japan Revised Guidelines and the recent friction between Tokyo and Washington over the relocation of the Futenma airbase, the book can be used as a resource for an East Asian case study of how and under which conditions security alliances survive and transform in the post-Cold War/post-September 11 world. This can be a building block for theory building on alliance management when compared with the literature on NATO's out-of-area comments and its post-Cold War transformations.

As for Beyond North Korea, the greatest strength of the book is its overall appreciation of and attention to the interconnectedness of various actors, institutions, issues, strategies, and levels of analysis in understanding South Korea's future security challenges. Donald Keyser's very strong overview chapter sets the tone for other chapters to follow and discusses the complexities of and conflicting pressures on South Korea's security. This book in some ways raises more questions than answers. But it is proof of good scholarship to ask good questions at times of uncertainty, in which South Korea finds itself now.

The US-South Korea Alliance would have been greatly enhanced by giving more attention to how North Korea fits in this discussion of the alliance transformation, and thereby examining more closely the interconnectedness of traditional and new security challenges. For example, are we expecting some type of trade-off in the allocation of the alliance resources between deterring North Korean attacks and expanding the alliance into new issue areas? In Beyond North Korea, as expected in most edited volumes, some chapters are stronger than others in terms of providing empirical evidence for the claims made. In summary, Snyder's The US-South Korea Alliance and Kim, Shin, and Straub's Beyond North Korea are a timely addition to our thinking about South Korea's security and do a great job at identifying the country's most important future security challenges.