ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses briefly the status of arms control proposals by the two Koreas. As the process of arms control gathers speed, Republic of Korea-U.S. defense cooperation agreements, practices, and goals will have to evolve to meet changing realities on the peninsula. The better North-South relations become, the less Moscow's traditional alliance with Pyongyang would stand as a barrier to Soviet-South Korean economic cooperation. A role-playing simulation is a good example of an analytical tool that could prove useful in spurring Korean thinking on arms control. The importance of the US military commitment would decline if meaningful arms control were achieved in Korea. The US and South Korean militaries share nearly all primary military duties: providing ground units to respond to a direct assault, deploying tactical air units, maintaining modest naval forces, and so on. As South Korea comes to assume the ground force burden, the key US contributions would come in the area of air and naval forces.
