Since Trump’s election, Seoul’s analysts asked questions. Commentators voiced unease – and “Liberation Day” proved their concerns well founded as the U.S. imposed a series of dynamic tariffs driven by social media and personal sentiment. Yet the depth of ties between Washington and Seoul led many to judge the tariffs difficult, but not insurmountable.
Somewhere between Venezuela and Iran, attitudes started to change.
Operation “Absolute Resolve” – the U.S. military operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro – occurred in the early hours of 3 January 2026. In Seoul, it started new conversations. Commentators overlooked the fact that it did not respond to an actual or imminent armed attack and lacked United Nations Security Council authorization. What they could not overlook, however, was the widening credibility gap.
For many in South Korea, the issue was not rule of law but predictability: if U.S. strategy is improvisational, leader-driven, and selectively legal, then commitments framed as ironclad look contingent. What happens when this extends to the Korean Peninsula?
The South Korea–United States alliance once operated according to a clear, if imperfect, logic: it paired deterrence with conditional engagement. Even during acute crises, policymakers anchored strategy in process – through multilateral frameworks such as the Six-Party Talks, sustained alliance coordination, and calibrated military signaling. They sought to manage risk, not stage disruption. They pursued a defined objective: preserve stability on the peninsula, prevent escalation, and keep diplomatic space open. That structured approach – whatever its flaws – contrasted sharply with improvisation, because in Korea the costs of unpredictability are existential, not merely reputation.
Operation Absolute Resolve, by comparison, looked less like strategy than improvisation – political signaling without clear strategic objectives. That distinction matters. The Korean Peninsula’s security dilemma is structural and enduring, not a venue for episodic displays of strength. In a theater where miscalculation carries existential risk, improvisation is not resolve; it is instability.
The emerging confrontation with Iran compounds Korean anxieties. From Seoul’s perspective, the Iran conflict – marked by sanctions, strikes, assassinations, counter-strikes, long-term economic strangulation, and sudden financial coercion – has lacked a clearly articulated strategic rationale.
What is the rationale? Democracy and human rights? Containment? Nuclear rollback? Regime change? The security of Israel? A hidden deeper strategy weakening China’s access to Iranian energy? There is no clearly defined objective.
South Korea now confronts the prospect of an immediate devastating economic impact, a distinct lack of U.S. readiness after a major Middle East conflict, and increasing uncertainty about how Washington will conduct itself in the region – including in its future dealings with North Korea.
For South Korea, this is not abstract. The strategy of Donald Trump’s “fire and fury” with North Korea in his first term unfolded through late-night tweets and abrupt rhetorical escalations, outpacing formal diplomatic coordination between Seoul and Washington. Tweets threatened direct and imminent action, suggested aircraft carrier battle groups heading towards the Korean Peninsula when they were going in the opposite direction, challenged North Korea’s leader directly, and dismissed the knowledge of experts working in the field.
Strategy moved at the speed of social media rather than long-established alliance and diplomatic processes. But these concerns were already present.
Venezuela and Iran have precipitated a new concern. In a crisis, would the United States even consider South Korea’s interests or would they focus solely on an impossible-to-decipher US strategy, or even worse, the personal interests of the Trump family?
From Washington’s perspective, the Korean Peninsula functions as a strategic fulcrum. Its location allows the United States to project influence into the broader Indo-Pacific. It is a forward position against China, a check on Russia’s Far East ambitions, and a symbol of alliance credibility. In this logic, Korea is a pivot.
As China challenges the US in the region, South Koreans fear that the Korean Peninsula will be a fulcrum to defend US interests in the region. As in 1950, China could not both invade Taiwan and prevent the collapse of North Korea. The Korean Peninsula remains the fulcrum.
The unspoken fear is that the priority of the United States is not the Korean people and their security – it is American dominance and the Trump family fortune.
Historically, the alliance worked because U.S. and Korean interests substantially overlapped. Both sought deterrence, stability, and eventual denuclearization. Both valued institutional consultation. When disagreements emerged – over burden-sharing or trade – they were nested within shared strategic assumptions.
Today, those assumptions are less solid. Tariffs justified as patriotic assertion, military operations framed as spectacle, and diplomacy outsourced to ad hoc real estate envoys all contribute to an acute instability. None individually break the alliance. Together, they erode confidence.
Korea is not turning anti-American. Public opinion remains broadly supportive of the alliance. But support is increasingly conditional. Younger policymakers speak openly of hedging strategies – diversifying partnerships, strengthening indigenous capabilities, and expanding diplomatic autonomy. These are not acts of betrayal. They are insurance policies.
Some even dare to wonder what opportunities lie in the BRICS or what acquiescing to China’s dominance in the region would bring.
Koreans are losing faith not in American strength, but in American steadiness. If Washington treats every theater as a stage for disruption – whether in Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Ukraine, or elsewhere – Seoul will conclude that the Peninsula is simply another act in a global drama.
And that realization marks a quiet but profound shift: from dependence to distance, from trust to calculation. The alliance may persist for a while, but its emotional core – the sense of shared strategic destiny – is rapidly thinning.
Venezuela and now Iran are having an impact beyond their immediate regions.
Jeffrey Robertson previously worked for the Australian Government in the fields of foreign policy and diplomacy with a focus on East Asia. He now writes from the other side of the line – as an academic, consultant, and sometimes spy fiction ghostwriter. He writes and updates research at https://junotane.com.
