ABSTRACT
Japan, the security of which was an important factor in United States (US) policies toward Korea in the early post-World War II period but which had exerted little independent influence on U.S-Korean relations, has become a major factor in the international subsystem. The American and Republic of Korea governments both have drawn upon the experiences of the Korean War and the war in Southeast Asia in formulating strategies for the 1970s in Korea. The Park government seems especially concerned about the threat of a "war of national liberation," a la Vietnam, with pockets of insurgency within South Korea generated by North Korean agents. The Park regime will continue to pursue a course that resists the dictates of the United States, even as Park seeks to postpone for as long as possible the inevitable withdrawal of American forces from the Korean peninsula.
