Washington’s newly released National Defense Strategy signals a recalibration of alliance roles on the Korean Peninsula, experts say, as senior US defense policymaker Elbridge Colby met with South Korean high-ranking security officials in Seoul on Monday.
Colby, a principal architect of the latest US National Defense Strategy, has been in South Korea since Sunday on a three-day visit, during which Seoul and Washington discussed alliance priorities and deterrence on the peninsula.
The Donald Trump administration released the 2026 National Defense Strategy last week as a supporting document to the National Security Strategy issued in December. The strategy places a sharper emphasis on defending the US homeland and calls on allies to shoulder a greater share of collective defense responsibilities.
In the document, the US Department of Defense states that it will seek to make it “as easy as possible for allies and partners to take on a greater share of the burden of our collective defense.”
Assessing South Korea, the strategy notes that “with its powerful military, supported by high defense spending, a robust defense industry, and mandatory conscription, South Korea is capable of taking primary responsibility for deterring North Korea." It adds that such responsibility would be assumed “with critical but more limited US support.”
Yu Ji-hoon, a research fellow at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses and former professor of military strategy at the Republic of Korea Naval Academy, said the new strategy signals a clearer redistribution of alliance roles.
“The core of th
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