ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an orientation to US policy toward Korea beginning with the negotiation of the Agreed Framework and moving to the current situation. The Agreed Framework provides for liaison offices to be open. The chapter identifies US policy in the new administration, in the Clinton administration, as a continuation of the Bush administration policy. It defines US interests as first to defend South Korean sovereignty, and second to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction globally, but particularly in Northeast Asia. The Clinton administration also emphasized another traditional US interest: to promote democracy and free market, the free enterprise system. To some in the South, there is the US reaction to the submarine incident. In an alliance, when there is a dependent ally, and South Korea is in a relative sense dependent on the US for its security, that dependency leads to a dissatisfaction with the stronger party's policy, almost no matter what it is.
