With the end of the U.S. involvement in Vietnam and Indochina attention has turned to the Korean Peninsula. For the past two decades an uneasy peace has been maintained between two Korean governments—the one Communist, totalitarian, and revolutionary; the other non-Communist, yet authoritarian, undemocratic, and indeed almost as totalitarian in its lack of regard for opposition political voices and the rights of the individual. Probably nowhere else is American power and influence so greatly exposed as on the Korean Peninsula—with all the attendant risks for involving the U.S. in a land war on the Asian mainland.

Any sensible discussion of alternatives to U.S. policy in Korea should begin with consideration of the commitment of the U.S. to the defense of Korea, as embodied in the treaty between the U.S. and Korea that entered into force in November, 1954.