The United States and Korea Leading beyond the Storm

For the United States and Korea, the global economic crisis was not just a sea change, but a tsunami. Nations riveted just weeks earlier by issues like terrorism and proliferation were consumed by talk of economic collapse and unprecedented fiscal and monetary actions seeking to avoid a second Great Depression. In the midst of this storm stood a U.S.-Korea alliance that had withstood a half-century of war and peace. Yet even before the crisis, leaders of both nations were struggling to rethink a partnership still adjusting to the Cold War’s end; a post-9/11 world of interconnected security threats; and the rise of China and Asia on the wave of Internet-speed, global competition.