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In 2021, Lami Kim wrote “A Hawkish Dove? President Moon Jae-In and South Korea’s Military Buildup” for War on the Rocks, in which she discussed contradictory South Korean policies of peaceful engagement with North Korea and a military buildup to secure operational control on the peninsula from the United States. In response to recent South Korean parliamentary elections, we asked her to look back on the article.Read more below.Photo Credit:  U.S. Air Force (Photo by Staff Sgt. Alex Fox Echols III)In your article “A Hawkish Dove? President Moon Jae-in and South Korea’s Military Buildup” written in 2021, you discussed President Moon’s contradictory policies of peaceful engagement with North Korea and South Korea securing operational control of forces on the peninsula from the United States. As you argued, that transfer requires a significant South Korean military buildup. Over the past three years, what has changed? In line with other conservative administrations, the Yoon Seok-yeol administration has taken a hawkish stance on North Korea and called for the development of “overwhelming” wartime capabilities and emphasized defense capabilities under the slogan of “power through strength.” In so doing, the Yoon administration has focused on strengthening South Korea’s alliance with the United States and strengthening partnership with the United States and Japan instead of enhancing South Korea’s independent capability to counter North Korea’s threats, which is a requirement for gaining wartime operational control. This is evident in the defense budget increases of 4.4 percent in 2023 and 4.5 percent in 2024 under Yoon — considerably lower than the increases during Moon’s tenure, which averaged close to 7 percent. While this moderation in the budget increase partly reflects Yoon’s austerity policy, it is important to note that the increase in the defense budget has been allocated toward salary increases and welfare improvements for soldiers while the proportion of