Before-the-window-closes-Australia-South-Korea-defence-cooperation-in-a-new-strategic-era

As the two countries prepare to update their 2011 Memorandum of Understanding on Defence Cooper- ■ Encourage the Republic of Korea Navy to ation in the field of Defence Cooperation “to strength- assume greater and more regular leader- en the defence partnership to better respond to the ship of multilateral naval exercises and security challenges in the region,”1 policymakers operations in the regi. [...] Though it emphasis on the need for collective solutions to highlights the importance of multiple subregions shared regional challenges; and Australia’s return including the Indian Ocean, the Pacific Islands, as an actor of consequence and value in Korean and the east coast of Africa, Southeast Asia stands strategic thinking for the first time since the late out as the clear priority for South Kore. [...] This reflects an appreciation in Seoul of the need to strike a bal- ance between the imperatives of deterrence and The most notable element of the KIPS is evident in peaceful unification on the Korean Peninsula with its title: the expansion of South Korea’s foreign poli- emerging strategic challenges and opportunities cy aperture through its adoption of the Indo-Pacific across the wider region. [...] Importantly, both the decline of the importance of the Korean Peninsu- DSU and the DSR emphasise that advancing and la relative to more proximate strategic challenges protecting Australia’s regional interests requires in Australian strategic planning, and of views of a willingness and capacity to “contribute with our South Korea as a relevant and reliable partner in partners to the collective secu. [...] Indeed, consistent engagement with figures in the National Assembly by important and productive will be key Australian official and non-official figures was a key feature of Australia’s approach to influence-build- to the success of the bilateral ing during the Rudd-Lee years, and in building support for the passage of the Korea-Australia Free defence relationship in the Trade Agreement (KAFTA) in.