While South Korea and Australia occupy distinct strategic positions in the Indo-Pacific, they share a common security foundation: decades of alliance management under the United States. Both have leveraged their partnerships with Washington to ensure national security, expand defence capabilities and enhance regional influence. Their geopolitical environments are different, but their shared status as middle powers in a US-led security order gives them overlapping challenges and opportunities. Their alliance experiences—shaped by differing threat perceptions, geography and strategic cultures—offer valuable lessons for one another as they navigate a turbulent security environment marked by intensifying great-power rivalry, rapid technological disruption and shifting US priorities.
How to manage a US alliance: what Canberra and Seoul can learn from each other | The Strategist
