South Korea

The fact that Biden has kept engaged in diplomatic outreach with Asia, hosted the ASEAN summit and will visit South Korea and Japan and have the Quad leaders summit shows that the focus on the Indo-Pacific will remain.

Under President-elect Yoon's [administration], the United States and South Korea are likely to find themselves on the same page more often than in the recent past on a range of issues including the best strategy for dealing with North Korea.

While there’s some debate about the precise state of North Korea’s missile capabilities, including the new hypersonic missile it claims to have tested, what is clear is that North Korea’s continued advancement of its nuclear and missile programs are exacerbating the security dilemma in the region. Because diplomacy has failed thus far to restrain Pyongyang, Northeast Asian states, especially South Korea and Japan, feel as if they have no other choice but to increase their own military capabilities and joint capabilities with the United States to deter, or in the worst case, preempt, a North Korean attack. Beijing, however, claims these moves shift the military balance in the region in a way that threatens its own security, and that it must continue to advance its own strategic capabilities in response. In sum, North Korea’s ever-advancing missile and nuclear programs are creating major ripple effects on the region.