Abstract
Through much of its history, Korea has been an authoritarian client-state dwelling in China’s shadow. In accordance with that tradition, for most of the postwar era the Korean peninsula has been notable for the authoritarianism of its two regimes. In both Seoul and Pyongyang, stern — and often harsh — authoritarianism has been the norm. Although there is no moral equivalence between South Korea’s military-backed authoritarianism and the police state in the North, the close bonds between the United States and the Republic of Korea (ROK) have earned it the label Friendly Tyrant.
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References
See Hur Wha-pyung, “The Military’s Role in South Korean Politics,” in Far Eastern Economic Review, November 19, 1987, pp. 54–55.
The best survey of that affair is Robert Boettcher, Gifts of Deceit: Sun Myung Moon, Tongsun Park, and the Korean Scandal (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1980.)
See the following conservative analyses which recommend withdrawing U.S. forces from Korea: Hoover Institution senior fellow, Melvyn Krauss, How NATO Weakens The West (New York: Simon and Shuster, 1986), chapter 10;
CATO Institute senior fellow, Doug Bandow, “Korea: The Case for Disengagement,” Policy Analysis, December 8, 1987;
Bandow, “Leaving Korea,” Foreign Policy, Winter 1989–90.
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© 1991 Foreign Policy Research Institute
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Olsen, E.A. (1991). South Korea under Military Rule: Friendly Tyrant?. In: Pipes, D., Garfinkle, A. (eds) Friendly Tyrants. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-21676-5_16
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-21676-5_16
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-21678-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-21676-5
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