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Run It Back? Reflections on South Korea’s Involvement in the War on Terror and What It Says about Another Potential Deployment

Alexander Eid

 It is said that history does not repeat but it often rhymes, and following last week’s commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the U.S.-South Korea relationship of two-and-a-half decades ago appears to be rhyming with the relationship of today.

 On September 8, South Korea deployed a government inspection team to the United Arab Emirates to assess the situation in the Strait of Hormuz amid reports that Seoul may deploy non-lethal support in the region. The move came amid rising tension in the U.S.-South Korea relationship stemming from Washington’s conflict with Iran and broader points of bilateral economic friction. Although Seoul maintains that “no decision has been made” regarding the potential deployment, the consideration alone evokes a similar calculus to that exhibited by the South Korean government in the early 2000s.

 Following the start of the War on Terror, the United States asked its allies to support its military operations in the Middle East, including South Korea. Like the leaders of many U.S. allies at the time, South Korean President Kim Dae-jung faced a United States that saw itself firmly on the warpath of the righteous. Kim accordingly pledged “to cooperate and provide full support” to Washington while hosting his U.S. counterpart at the Blue House in February 2002, but, as the war escalated with the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and as U.S. objectives grew increasingly unlimited, the political tradeoffs of that cooperation became more complicated. 

 South Korea broke the seal on providing non-combat support to U.S. operations in the Middle East in 2002 with the forward deployment of the 200-person Dongui Medical Unit, previously stationed in Kyrgyzstan, to Afghanistan. However, its involvement quickly expanded to Iraq in 2003. That year saw the dispatch of around 600 medics and engineers, known as the Seohee and Jema Units, in April and the decision to deploy 3,000 additional combat and non-combat troops , later known as the Zaytun Division, in December. Seoul would reinforce its operations through 2004, with South Korea’s peak involvement in both Afghanistan and Iraq reaching just shy of 4,000. 

 These deployments constituted South Korea’s most significant international entanglement since the Vietnam War, another U.S.-motivated, largely unlimited conflict. Granted, the world looked very different in 2002 (and in 1964) than it does in 2026. However, these circumstances do exemplify a shared theme: the tension between entrapment and abandonment. 

 A theory of international relations most cogently applied to South Korea by Victor Cha of Georgetown University, the notions of abandonment and entrapment describe the perennial anxiety that affects the militarily weaker partner in a bilateral alliance. In South Korea’s case, Seoul fears becoming bogged down or “entrapped” in expensive and deadly foreign conflicts that do not serve its national interest while at the same time feeling compelled to become involved or else risk “abandonment” by its stronger military ally. In the early 2000s, this abandonment-entrapment tension centered on North Korea, hawkishness in Washington, and the South Korean government’s efforts at engagement. 

 In January 2002, just before his trip to South Korea, President Bush famously declared Iran, Iraq, and North Korea an “Axis of Evil.” The quote significantly inflamed anti-Americanism among South Koreans - particularly those on the left side of the political spectrum - who viewed the United States as the primary obstacle to North-South reunification. As one article quipped at the time, “If Bush regards North Korea as part of the ‘Axis of Evil,’ I wonder if the United States isn’t an ‘Axis of Imperialism.’” 

 Presidents Kim Dae-jung (1998-2003) and Roh Moo-hyun (2003-2008), both pro-engagement leaders from South Korea’s leftwing, chafed against the inconsistent and often hawkish attitude of the early Bush administration toward Pyongyang. Experts at the time wrote of Bush’s North Korea policy as one in “disarray” based on contradictory signals from members of the Bush government and the president himself on dialogue with North Korea. 

 Leveraging Cha’s work, this mismatch can be viewed as a form of abandonment. The ideal path would see Seoul and Washington approach from the same direction, similar to what they achieved through the Agreed Framework in 1994. However, in early 2002, Washington appeared to be diverging, or at least, uncertain about the way ahead. For Seoul, this created the potential for unilateral U.S. action on North Korea that could undermine recent, hard-fought diplomatic progress with Pyongyang or, in the worst case, completely obliterate it. 

 If concern of unilateral action from the United States represented a fear of abandonment, involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan represented a fear of entrapment. Anti-American and anti-war sentiment in South Korea rose between 2002-2004, particularly as South Korean citizens began to pay the price for the war. In response to the killing of one South Korean in Iraq in 2004, one anti-war protestor said, “Yes, I blame the [Iraqi] militants for what happened. But I also blame George Bush for pressuring South Koreans to go against our will.” Not only was the war unpopular, any direct benefits for South Korea were also unclear. Some articles at the time speculated that the war could create future export markets in the Middle East, but the war’s impact on the U.S.-South Korea relationship and North Korea dwarfed these discussions.

 Ultimately, in its decision to join the United States in the Middle East but in a limited capacity, South Korea found a compromise that balanced between abandonment and entrapment. Today, Seoul faces a similar test and, as the Korea JoongAng Daily deftly observed, some of the same men who informed the decisions to deploy troops in the early 2000s are once again at the helm today. As familiar names and forces thus reemerge in its decision-making, it appears likely that South Korea will again seek a balanced approach. 

President Lee Jae Myung Wraps Up France Visit, Calls for Deeper Cooperation in Strategic Industries

Nazia Kazi

From September 6-8, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung finished up summit talks with French President Emmanuel Macron on expanding cooperation in strategic sectors, including defense, aerospace, artificial intelligence (AI), semiconductors and quantum technology, nuclear energy, industrial competitiveness, and intellectual property. President Lee’s visit to France also focused on deepening cultural, economic, and political bilateral ties, following Macron’s earlier summit to South Korea in April.

Regarding the Strait of Hormuz, both countries have agreed to continue close coordination to ensure freedom of navigation and restore stable global supply chains. In a press conference following the summit, Lee reaffirmed South Korea’s advancement in defense and security cooperation with France through a reciprocal military logistics support agreement and amended protocols for protecting access to secret military information. However, officials in Seoul assure that this framework for defense cooperation is not a decision for troop deployment.

In addition to increased defense cooperation, South Korea and France are working to expand annual bilateral trade to $20 billion by 2030. Two new memorandum of understandings call for checks on industrial competition and easing intellectual property cooperation for further investment in advanced technologies, such as artificial intelligence, next-gen nuclear reactors, and quantum technologies, and space.

 Alongside government memorandums, South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics Co. has signed a partnership to strategically invest in Mistral AI, a French AI startup specializing in open-source large language models. The Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology signed MOUs with the Institute of Plant Sciences Paris-Saclay (IPS2), INSA Toulouse (National Institute of Applied Sciences in Toulouse), and quantum computing company Quandela to increase biotechnology cooperation.

 While co-chairing the Lumière Summit in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, president Lee highly emphasized the importance of maintaining cultural ties and managing AI challenges in the film industry. Beyond strategic sectors, he urged for “human creativity to coexist harmoniously” with technological advancements, highlighting the significance of his country’s global cultural impact.

 Nearing the end of the summit, Lee looked forward to another 140 years of diplomatic ties. As Seoul and Paris renew bilateral cooperation, both leaders urge deeper cooperation to further enhance quality of life and open doors to new opportunities for their citizens. 

This Week In Korean History

On September 14, 1993, French President François Mitterrand arrived in South Korea for a state visit, during which he returned one volume of the Oegyujanggak Euigwe (외규장각의궤). The returned text and its companion books were looted by the French military in 1866, and it took until 2011 for all 297 volumes to be returned.