ABSTRACT
Introduction Unprecedented trends are now taking place in Northeast Asia, particularly in the field of peace and security. Taken together, these trends may have potential to change the frame of cooperation and contention in the region. First and foremost, the gravity of potential conflict in the region is increasingly recognized. Some certainty in the stalemate-like situation of the Cold War has been put aside for more conflictual dynamism to take the dominant status. Security concerns on the posture of North Korea run high. Despite the frequent description of the US-North Korean conflict as of a recent origin, citing the Pyongyang’s nuclear program as a cause for example, this conflict stems from the period of modern state formation in Korea and un-concluded war of 1950-3. Concurrently, an unprecedented social transition is occurring in South Korea along with democratization and rapid expansion of civil society since the late 1980s. Interestingly many social changes are often expressed in the language of security-“degradation of security awareness” and “rise of anti-war/anti-US sentiment” among young generations and “rise/internationalization of peace movement.” It is also interesting to note that many of the key social actors involved in this transition question legitimacy of the regional structure born from the 1950-3 conflict, for example, raise the issue of the legitimacy of the ROK-US alliance.
