The inauguration on Monday of Lee Myung-bak as South Korea's new president opens the door for a revitalisation of the country's alliance with the United States. This relationship has been severely tested and strained in recent years, as a result of policy differences and more fundamental 'vision' differences between Washington and Seoul.
An increasingly pragmatic approach towards the Korean Peninsula on the part of Washington, and the advent of a more conservative, pro-alliance government in Seoul, makes improved relations more likely and perhaps even somewhat easier to achieve, but by no means assured. If the alliance relationship is to be truly revitalised, both sides need to take some decisive steps, sooner rather than later.
Mr Lee has already said that he plans to place increased importance on alliance maintenance and that he understands the centrality of the relationship to the security of the peninsula.
But what is missing, in both Seoul and Washington, has been a clear articulation of the continued rationale and vision for the alliance both today and after eventual North-South reconciliation or reunification. Such a vision existed, and was clearly articulated, during the Kim Dae-jung and Clinton administrations, but has not really been spelled out since then.
The last time that presidents Roh Moo-hyun and George W. Bush held a summit meeting, they did not even issue a joint statement. The time before that, they issued a vague statement that focused more on multilateral co-operation than on the future relevance of the bilateral relationship. One would hope that Mr Lee, shortly after his election, would issue a broad vision statement about South Korea's desired future role in Asia, and the world, and how the US alliance fits into this vision.
Mr Kim used to argue publicly and persuasively that South Korea had to maintain good relations simultaneously with its four giant neighbours - China, Japan, Russia and the United States. He said that the best, perhaps the only, way this could be accomplished was through the continued viability of the alliance with the US, which provided Seoul with the necessary security assurances to deal with its other three, more immediate, neighbours. The US, in effect, was the 'outside balancer' that made Northeast Asian harmony possible. This was true in the near term, when faced with uncertainty regarding North Korea's future direction and behaviour; it would be equally, if not more, true were North Korea to either disappear or become somehow incorporated into a greater Korean confederation or unified nation under the political, economic and social system existing today in the South.
Does Mr Lee see the future in similar terms? If so, he needs to articulate his vision at any summit meeting with Mr Bush. This would then set the stage for a joint statement articulating a common vision for the alliance and its future role and relevance.