An alternative to the autonomy-security trade-off model: The case of the ROK-U.S. alliance

Most of the alliances that were formed during the Cold War period were known as a so-called “asymmetric alliance,” which means strong states provide one-sided support for the partner in a relationship at the expense of the weaker power’s autonomy. In an asymmetric alliance, a weak state gets full security support from the superpower, but in return, the weak state loses its autonomy. In this case, there is a trade-off between security and autonomy of the weaker state. This is what the Autonomy-Security Trade-off Model suggests. However, after the end of the Cold War, the weak powers, especially the developing country, have tried to increase its autonomy without any loss of its security—unlike what the Autonomy-Security Trade-Off Model argues. In this case, there may not be necessarily a trade-off between autonomy and security if a weak state decides to increase both autonomy and security simultaneously. The weak state does not usually want to lose its security, therefore it tries to find a strategy that can increase its autonomy without decreasing its security. In this sense, this paper argues that the Autonomy-Security Trade-off model has limitations to explain the above kind of national action after the Cold War. In line with this, the goal of this paper is to offer an alternative model to explain an asymmetric alliance relationship by looking at the case of the ROK-U.S. alliance at the turn of the twenty-first century.