American alliances in the post-cold war order: The cases of Turkey and South Korea (1991-2021)

Throughout the Cold War, the Western alliance system, which focused on deterrence based on bipolar superpower competition, was able to maintain its continuity after the dissolution of the USSR. However, the 9/11 attacks, Iraq War in 2003, the 2008 financial crisis and the Arab Spring; Russia and China's return to great power competition, and events such as the increasing regional activities of actors such as the BRICS and Turkey led to the emergence of new dynamics in the structure of the international system and triggered discussions on the position of the USA. This, together with the changing threat environment and the emergence of new threats, led to differentiation in the alliance behavior of the states that were allied with the USA under post-world war conditions. Turkey and Republic of Korea, those mainly compared to within modernization processes in the context of democratic development and economic parameters, shows important similarities in the context of their alliance with the US. In this study, post-Cold War alliances of the United States are discussed within the framework of Turkish-US and ROK-US relations through process analysis and various levels of analysis provided by the neoclassical realist theory. In this context, the alliance behaviours of the states with the USA are determined by the characteristics of the post-Cold War period. The effects of the social conditions in allied countries are also analysed. In the study, discursive and intellectual data as well as theoretical and practical data has ben collected from primary and secondary sources. Academic and theoretical assumptions were tried to be explained with the help of concrete data including tables, statistics and economic indicators. In addition, data were collected through individual interviews with various experts in the field. Thus, the theoretical findings of the study were supported by these data. The independent variable of the study is the structure of the international system. The increasing nationalism in the post-Cold War period, the ideological and political stalemates of liberalism, the emerging new threats and forms of cooperation, Russia's geopolitical pressure, the increasing economic power of China and Asia and the US-China rivalry based on this have been the factors affecting the foreign policy of the states. Thus, the current study indicates that the cooperation forms and issues raised in Turkish and South Korean relations with the USA are a part of the context that comprising systemic impact on foreign policy behaviors.