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The purpose of this article is to urge political leaders, scholars, pundits and government officials to adjust South Korea’s short-term foreign policy goals “realistically” to the long-term grand strategy for neutralized reunification in the era of tumultuous changes in Northeast Asia where rising China, rebalancing America, nuclear North Korea, and the more assertive Japan (becoming normal state) loom large in the strategic landscapes. As the recently ongoing controversy on the prospective deployment of THAAD system in the South Korean soils indicates, it is high time for South Koreans to develop, exchange and discuss various ideas so that the long-time confrontation between North and South Korea may not spread strategic mistrust among all of the regional powers. Until now since the signing of military pact in 1953 South Korea has maintained a strong alliance relationship with the U.S. At the government level other options have never been seriously considered even in a brief interlude during the Second Republic of Korea (July 1960-May 1961) when some politicians and civilian activists promoted the idea of neutralized reunification of Korea. In today’s fluctuating situations in Northeast Asia, the Korean peninsula is the epicenter of nuclear confrontation among great powers due to the North Korean nuclear issue and the controversial THAAD system. Whether or not the two Koreas conduct wise foreign policies is not just a matter of Koreans themselves but a matter of life and death for an emerging new world order.
