글로벌 패권경쟁과 미국의 신외교정책 = Global Hegemonic Competition and New U.S. Foreign Policy

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

One of the distinct trends in the recent international order is the rise of the great power politics, commonly referred to as the ‘return of geopolitics.’ The West was relieved at the end of the Cold War, but since then, revisionist countries such as China, Russia, and Iran have rebelled against the U.S.-led international order. These countries have something in common that they attempt to defy the current U.S.-led international order. The rivalry between these countries and the United States is developing into a U.S.-China and U.S.-Russia hegemonic competition. Behind the return of geopolitics lies politics of identity between the great powers. ‘Identity politics’ means a dynamic that determines the degree of engagement and exclusion that exists between members of different groups. The ongoing strategic competition among the superpowers is largely based on this politics of identity. With the election of Joe Biden as the next U.S. president, the global hegemonic competition has taken on a new aspect. As the key tenets of overall foreign policy, Biden emphasizes the restoration of U.S. global leadership. This change is based on the self-reflection that U.S. leadership has weakened as the Trump administration has pushed for foreign policies that put U.S. national interests first under the banner of ‘America First.’ Recently, the U.S. policy for China, on the premise that the essence of U.S.-China relations is strategic competition, has focused on preventing China from further weakening the free and open rule-based international order. The conflict between the U.S. and China and Russia is a matter of fundamental values, suggesting that it is not of a nature that can be resolved by easy compromise. Above all, how hegemonic competition will unfold in the future depends on how quickly and firmly the U.S. global leadership will be reestablished. The U.S. strategy for dealing with the hegemonic competition among great powers is to respond by networking alliances and allies. South Korea should try to diversify its security and economic portfolio to spread the risks of competition for hegemony among great powers.