This Report is the product of a multiyear, bipartisan, bi-national “strategic dialogue” to candidly discuss the strengths and address the weaknesses in the U.S.-ROK alliance, place them in a regional and global context and look ahead to identify ways to ensure its future success. It concludes, “The US-ROK partnership should be reaffirmed but it should also be modernized and redefined… In this Report, we chart a path of strategic cooperation between the United States and South Korea for this new era.”

Mark J. Valencia, a maritime security analyst in Kaneohe, Hawaii, writes “emerging from one of the most conflict prone regions of the world is a conflict avoidance regime – in short, an expectation of self-restraint and sharing in such situations. But these regimes are not multilateral nor have they evolved in that direction despite the hopes and recommendations of policy analysts and practitioners. Nevertheless, they can be expanded and have a spillover effect on relations in general and maritime regime creation in particular.”

Leonid Petrov, Research Associate in the Division of Pacific and Asian History at Australian National University, writes, “If Moscow, Pyongyang and Seoul reach a mutual understanding, coordinate their policies, and preclude their rivals from destroying this unity, many hopes of the Russian and Korean peoples have a good chance of materializing in the coming four to five years.”