" National Responses to American Military Withdrawl from Korea : North Korea , South Korea "

Abstract

During the previous two decades, the United States policy in Asia has been based on an extension of the containment strategy originally designed for Europe. It started with the assumption that Chinese Communism constituted the same kind of expansionist threat to the security of the noncommunist world, and ultimately to the United States, as did communism in its Rusian variant. In July 1969, Mr. Nixon made the "Guam Declaration" stating in effect that, although U.S. treaty commitment remained in force and the U.S. nuclear umbrella would continue to be extended to protect allies, the "Nixon Doctrine" called for gradual American retrenchment and greater "burden sharing" on the part of allies throughout the world. In 1971, the first withdrawal of U.S. military troops from the Korean peninsula was made. The collapse of the U.S. effort in Southeast Asia in 1975 and the announcement by the Carter Administration early in 1977 that U.S. ground combat forces would be withdrawn from the Korean peninsula over the course of the next several years further reduced confidence in American power and in America's reliability as an ally of Japan on the part of certain members of Japan's governing elite.