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Major Dimensions of U .S. Policy toward South Korea
The U.S. relationship with South Korea encompasses foreign policy considerations in four principal areas, each rooted historically in the global U .S. policy of containment ofcommunism.(24) Notably, each of these areas of policy concern has generally been per-ceived quite differently in South Korea than in the United States.

The first dimension of the U .S.-Korea policy relationships was created by the division of Korea and the Korean War, which were part and parcel of the cold war containment policy pursued by the United States. In South Korea today, the national yearning for reunification forms the fundamental problem in Korean politics. Although the United States and the Soviet Union bear major responsibility for the decisions and the sequence of events that resulted in division of the Korean nation at the 38th parallel,25 such responsibility is neither widely understood nor publicly discussed in the United States. After all, the policy of containment implied that half a nation remaining noncommunist was better than none at all, especially if it protected Japan and even if it required support of military dictators and U .S. aid for economic growth.

A second policy domain is the military relationship between the two nations. South Korea has been home for 40,000 or more U .S. military personnel ever since the Korean war, large numbers of Korean troops fought on the U.S. side in the Vietnam War, and South Korea is the only nation in the world outside of Western Europe where it is acknowledged, although seldom publicly discussed, that the United States stations tactical nuclear weapons.(26) In addition, the United States has provided various forms of military aid and training to repressive military governments over the years, beginning with that of President Park Chung Hee, who took power in a 1961 military coup.