Kissinger’s Uncomfortable Lesson for Two Vulnerable Allies
Henry Kissinger would have understood the predicament confronting Israel and South Korea. Both countries are technologically advanced democracies that rely heavily on the United States for their security. They are also faced with adversaries that are equipped with missiles, drones, cyber capabilities and irregular forces. Most importantly, both countries could confront a major security crisis while Washington is already preoccupied with another theater.
As for South Korea, China’s provocation against Taiwan—either a full-fledged landing operation or a naval blockade—would likely draw American aircraft, naval assets, intelligence assets, and ammunition to the Taiwan Strait. In that scenario, North Korea would not need to invade South Korea to exploit the uncertainty. To test whether Washington could simultaneously manage two contingencies in East Asia, Pyongyang could launch missiles, conduct maritime infiltration, or employ a limited nuclear threat.
Israel faces a comparable problem. Iran could directly threaten Israel while also applying pressure through missiles, drones, and affiliated armed organizations. The danger is increasingly becoming trans-regional: North Korea has contributed to Iran’s missile development, and Russia’s relationship with both countries offers an additional route for military learning, technological exchange, and diplomatic protection. Russia and North Korea’s expanding military cooperation, which includes missile supply and troop deployment, ultimately enables Pyongyang to gain access to operational experience that could be helpful to other American adversaries.
To be sure, China, Russia and North Korea do not operate as a unified alliance that has a joint command structure. Nevertheless, they increasingly benefit from each other’s confrontation with the United States: conflict in one region would ineluctably consume America’s missile interceptors, intelligence coverage, strategic attention, and industrial capacity that could be needed elsewhere.
Yet material scarcity is only one constraint on American commitments. Even when the United States possesses the capability to support an ally, Washington’s assistance has never been entirely detached from its broader strategic interests. The history of American alliance management therefore offers another reason for Israel and South Korea to strengthen their capacity for self-reliance. Kissinger’s dealings with both countries provide particularly revealing examples.
Kissinger’s Approach to Israel
After the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Kissinger’s handling of Israel demonstrated this method.
While Egypt and Syria attacked Israel, and the Soviet Union initiated resupply to its partners, the Nixon administration organized a large-scale American airlift operation. Kissinger contributed to ensuring that Israel received the necessary weapons to replenish its forces and avoid strategic defeat.
Nevertheless, he did not consider such support a carte blanche. Once Israel’s military status was restored, Kissinger transformed the battlefield gains into a new regional balance by using American influence. Eventually, his shuttle diplomacy produced the Egyptian-Israeli disengagement agreement of January 1974, the Syrian-Israeli disengagement agreement a couple of months later, and the second Egyptian-Israeli agreement of September 1975.
These were limited agreements, rather than a comprehensive peace settlement. The primary objective was to separate forces, reduce the immediate probability of another war, and gradually detach Egypt from Soviet influence. Kissinger supported Israel’s survival while pressuring it to withdraw from occupied territories if doing so benefited the broader US strategy.
The Ford administration’s “reassessment” of its relations with Israel explicitly illustrates such conditionality. When Israel’s decision was to hamper Kissinger’s effort to reshape the regional order, Washington was prepared to pressure its ally.
Kissinger’s message was uncomfortable yet consistent. The United States would prevent Israel’s defeat. Israel could not assume that Washington would endorse every military or diplomatic choice.
Kissinger’s Approach to South Korea
Kissinger applied similar logic to South Korea.
Under the Nixon Doctrine, the US withdrew roughly 20,000 troops from South Korea by 1971, despite President Park Chung-hee’s opposition. At the same time, Washington supported a major modernization program for the South Korean military.
This was a reallocation of the burden, rather than a complete disengagement. While the alliance with the United States remained the ultimate guarantee against a major war on the Korean Peninsula, South Korea was expected to assume a greater burden for conventional defense.
Yet the series of events—the reduction of USFK, the US opening to China, and the debacle of South Vietnam—deepened Seoul’s concern that Washington would sacrifice South Korean interests for a wider geopolitical accommodation. As a result, the Park administration pursued its independent nuclear path, which included a plan to purchase a reprocessing plant from France.
While Kissinger was serving as Secretary of State, the Ford administration strove to halt the acquisition. Declassified US documents show concerns that such facilities would support South Korea’s nuclear program and an interagency effort to dissuade Seoul from proceeding with the purchase. Eventually, South Korea gave up its plan to acquire the French reprocessing facility.
Similar to the Israeli case, the bargain was an admixture of reassurance and restraint. Washington reinforced South Korea’s conventional defense while opposing an independent nuclear program that threatened non-proliferation, relationships with Japan and China, and broader US interests.
Allied Self-Reliance Without Estrangement
Although today’s circumstances are different, the underlying alliance dilemma remains: US security commitments are substantial, yet are neither unlimited nor detached from America’s broader interests.
The key lesson is not that Israel and South Korea should always be submissive to Washington. Rather, it is that an alliance becomes most credible when an ally can withstand the early stages of an armed conflict, contribute to capabilities that the US needs, and avoid confronting Washington with an irreversible fait accompli.
In that sense, Israel and South Korea should opt for self-reliance without allied estrangement.
South Korea should be prepared to deter North Korean aggression—at least during the opening weeks of a Taiwan contingency—when access to US assets for reinforcement is reduced. Washington and Seoul should identify in advance which of the assets—including early warning, intelligence gathering, air and missile defense, and ammunition—should be dedicated to the Korean Peninsula.
The agreement should not be based on ambiguous assurances that USFK would continuously be available. It should contain a mission-by-mission allocation table showing which American assets would be temporarily redeployed, which assets would remain on the Korean Peninsula, and which South Korean weapons systems would fill any resulting gaps.
Hence, South Korea should increase the stockpiles of PAC-3 and M-SAM interceptors, precision-guided air-to-ground weapons, C-UAS munitions, and fuel. Also, it should exercise responses to North Korea’s specific opportunistic behavior, such as cyber-attacks, missile demonstrations, maritime infiltration, limited artillery strikes, and preparations for nuclear use.
Meanwhile, Israel should establish a similar agreement with Washington in preparation for an Iranian attack that combines ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, drones, and pressure from multiple regional fronts. Both governments should negotiate interceptor resupply priorities, intelligence-sharing procedures, principles on target selection, and the conditions under which military campaigns would end.
Israel also requires more affordable interceptor capabilities. The Arrow series and David’s Sling should be reserved for the most dangerous threats, rather than expended against targets that could be destroyed by electronic warfare, guns, or inexpensive interceptor drones.
Israel-South Korean Dialogue on Strategic Resilience
Greater self-reliance does not need to be pursued independently or in isolation. Israel and South Korea should also deepen their bilateral cooperation on strategic resilience. Both countries face similar challenges involving missile and drone defense, wartime ammunition consumption, supply chain vulnerability, and reliance on finite US capabilities. Hence, a regular strategic dialogue could focus on intelligence exchanges concerning Iranian-North Korean defense cooperation, defense-industrial resilience, and lessons learned from simultaneous regional contingencies.
Needless to say, such cooperation would not replace either country’s alliance with Washington. Rather, it would strengthen their ability to absorb shocks and reduce the US burden when American forces and resources are needed in more than one theater.
Kissinger’s legacy remains controversial. His willingness to subordinate moral considerations and small countries to great-power calculations should serve as a warning, rather than a model.
Nonetheless, his critical geopolitical lesson is relevant. Alliances survive when interests, capabilities, and burdens are aligned. Therefore, Israel and South Korea should become harder to provoke, fight longer without external reinforcement, and become more valuable as US partners during concurrent regional contingencies.
Both countries need sufficient independent strength to preserve their respective freedom of action. However, such strength should be used to reinforce their alliances—not to escape from them.
