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Think tank says Korea poses military burden for U.S., but notes its chipmaking, other capabilities

Published: 09 Oct. 2025, 09:35 Updated: 09 Oct. 2025, 13:53

Korean and U.S. troops engage in a river-crossing exercise in Yeoju, 64 kilometers southeast of Seoul, on Aug. 27. [YONHAP]

A U.S.-based think tank on Wednesday noted South Korea's reluctance to help counter an assertive China and the risks of the United States' entanglement in a potential conflict with North Korea, but emphasized its chipmaking and other capabilities as benefits for the Seoul-Washington alliance.

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace released a report, titled "Legacy or Liability? Auditing U.S. Alliances to Compete with China," which analyzed the costs and benefits of the U.S.' alliances with seven countries ― Korea, Japan, Australia, the Philippines, France, Germany and Britain.

The report examined the alliances across eight key areas of U.S.-China strategic competition, including providing military support to U.S. deterrence in the Indo-Pacific, preventing the dissemination of leading-edge technology to China and offering the United States alternatives to China-based sources of chip production.

The areas also included controlling financial investments that would sharpen China's military edge, providing the United States with alternative sources of critical minerals, coproducing key weapons systems with the United States, supporting United States efforts to sustain its preferences for global order and ensuring influence with the Global South.

"Korea is reluctant to use its economic and military power to counter China, but poses a substantial military burden and risk to the U.S.," the report said. "Chip manufacturing and other nonmilitary capabilities help strengthen the case for the alliance."

The report came as Seoul and Washington seek to "modernize" the decades-old alliance in what U.S. officials have called an effort to ensure that the alliance remains "strategically sustainable" at a time of intensifying Sino-U.S. rivalry.

While the report said that Japan can further America's aims with China across all eight categories and poses a low risk of entanglement, it pointed out that South Korea requires a major investment of U.S. military power, and that "the alliance could lead to war with North Korea — and by extension China."

"It has a deeply asymmetrical defense relationship with the U.S., which is responsible for defending it against aggression by North Korea — creating the risk that Washington could become entangled in a war on the peninsula — but it contributes only a limited amount to meeting other U.S. military objectives in the region — despite its considerable economic wealth," the report said.

"Seoul sees the competition between China and the U.S. as posing a risk to its economic and other interests, but it has nevertheless taken small steps toward a stronger relationship with Washington and also Japan in response to China's rise."

Noting that defending South Korea against a North Korean attack is the "sole" purpose of the Seoul-Washington mutual defense treaty, the report said that it would be "inaccurate" to consider acting on the U.S. security commitment a case of entanglement.

Nevertheless, the United States commitment to the Asian ally comes at "considerable cost and risk," it said.

"[A] risk that has been growing as Pyongyang has acquired nuclear weapons and other advanced military capabilities," the report said.

"A war on the Korean Peninsula would moreover involve indirect and potentially direct conflict with China, North Korean strikes on Japan, potential nuclear weapons use by the North, proliferation of loose nuclear material and might even prompt a Chinese invasion of Taiwan — just to identify a few of the major risks."

Touching on South Korea's ability to reinforce semiconductor manufacturing supply chains, the report called the Asian country a key ally when it comes to "de-risking" chipmaking supply chains.

"South Korea's strength lies in its extensive fabrication plants as the second-largest semiconductor producer in the world, accounting in 2023 for 71 percent of the global dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) market and 53 percent of the not-and (NAND) flash market, two important memory chips with artificial intelligence and other commercial applications," it said.

The report also underscored that Korea is "very important" for U.S. critical mineral interests, particularly for producing advanced batteries, electronics-grade silicon and high-purity tungsten for military applications.

In the four categories concerning semiconductor and critical mineral supply chains; the prevention of the unwanted dissemination of advanced technology; and restrictions of investment in China's tech sector, the report described South Korea as "very important."

But on the remaining categories, it cast the Asian country as "somewhat important."

The report described Japan as "very important" for seven categories, while calling the country "somewhat important" for the category regarding the co-development of military technology and weapons systems with the United States.

Yonhap