ABSTRACT
The Korean peninsula is an environment where state survival has been the major imperative. Survival imparts a rational and predictable quality to foreign policy where instrumental choices are made based on the logic of realism. Survival is indeed the great leveller, reducing countries to the same condition of selecting rational courses of action despite differences of culture. Countries in similar situations of threat and insecurity may act in similar ways whatever their cultural backgrounds and whatever values they may uphold. In a situation of threat any action that departs appreciably from reality for reasons related to particular cultural values, idealism or political indecision would be punished severely by events. Neo-realism would have it that values and identities are irrelevant on the Korean peninsula, that their significance has been suppressed by the predictable logic of survival. Nonetheless, even in a high-threat situation such as that of the Korean peninsula neo-realism has limitations. In any given situation the logic of survival may suggest several instrumental choices, each viable within a particular context. Underlying values become important in explaining why one course of action is selected in preference to another, why bandwagoning may be selected over military deterrence. Decisionmaking may result in a course of action that deviates from that anticipated by an objective observer, which will require explanation in the realm of values and identity.
