Recommendations for the Lee Jae-myung Administration’s National Security Strategy

Beomchul Shin

bcshin@sejong.org

Principal Research Fellow

Sejong Institute

1. Overview

The National Security Strategy (NSS) is the highest-level policy document that reflects an administration’s governing philosophy and policy orientation with respect to security-related strategies and policies, including diplomacy, national defense, and inter-Korean affairs. Based on the NSS, foreign and security-related ministries establish concrete policy directions.

Within the NSS, the assessment of the security environment involves analyzing threat factors by considering the impact of changing domestic and international conditions on national security. On the basis of this assessment, each administration sets its strategic objectives related to national security. With respect to policy implementation, the strategic tasks outlined in the NSS function as guiding principles. These strategic tasks specify the concrete directions of government-level efforts required to achieve national security objectives and have traditionally included dozens of tasks related to the work of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of National Defense, and the Ministry of Unification.

It is reported that the Lee Jae-myung administration is currently in the process of drafting its National Security Strategy, with publication expected by the end of this year or early next year. At present, the process appears to be focused on consolidating input from relevant ministries based on the President’s campaign pledges and the policy agenda formulated by the State Affairs Planning Committee. As the forthcoming NSS will serve as the foundation for systematically advancing the new administration’s foreign and security policies, careful drafting is required. In this context, this paper reviews past experiences and offers observations on key issues.

2. Implications from Previous National Security Strategies

To date, the Republic of Korea has been assessed as having established its own NSS framework by early learning from and adapting the advanced NSS systems of the United States. Since the Roh Moo-hyun administration in 2003, successive governments have issued National Security Strategies, customarily publishing both a classified version—referred to as the “National Security Strategy Guidelines,” which addresses sensitive issues—and a public version intended as a communication tool for informing the public of government policy.

Looking back, each administration has pursued a distinct national security strategy, and the NSS has contributed to strengthening governmental preparedness and response capabilities across the full spectrum of national security. The drafting and sharing process enhanced coordination between the National Security Office and relevant ministries and reinforced the National Security Office’s role as a control tower. In addition, the NSS drafting process has served to evaluate the previous administration’s security strategy, propose directions for improvement, and incorporate changes in the security environment, thereby strengthening responses to emerging threats. Representative examples include the incorporation of nontraditional security issues such as natural disasters, as well as economic security issues related to new technologies and supply chains.

However, several shortcomings have also been identified in past drafting processes. First is the issue of sustainability. A review of past NSS documents reveals significant differences in positions across administrations. This is largely attributable to an emphasis on converting presidential campaign pledges into strategic tasks within the NSS. As a result, efforts to maintain consistency in core areas such as the ROK-U.S. alliance and North Korea policy have been insufficient to ensure sustainable long-term strategies.

Second is the issue of influence within the government. While ministries tend to participate actively in the drafting and dissemination of the NSS during the early stages of an administration, references to the strategy often decline by the mid-term due to personnel changes and shifts in the policy environment. Consequently, toward the latter half of an administration, the NSS frequently fades into obscurity and fails to perform its intended role.

Third is the insufficient reflection of environmental changes. As international conditions evolve, the importance of issues outside the traditional security domain—particularly economic issues—has increased. Nevertheless, NSS documents have tended to underrepresent these areas, focusing primarily on traditional security concerns such as the North Korean nuclear issue, alliances, force development, and inter-Korean relations. Although nontraditional threats and emerging security issues have gradually been incorporated in recent strategies, the pace has lagged behind the rapidly growing importance of economic security in the current security environment.

Fourth, with respect to public communication, NSS drafting has largely remained government-led and constrained by security considerations, resulting in limited outreach to the public. Participation by private-sector experts has been limited, typically confined to briefing sessions through advisory committees. As a result, expert understanding and engagement have been insufficient, weakening the NSS’s ability to mobilize public support for government policy.

3. Key issues for the Lee Jae-myung administration’s National Security Strategy

(1) Systematic Incorporation of Foreign and Security Pledges and State Affairs Agenda

Campaign pledges and state affairs agendas represent commitments to the electorate that selected the Lee Jae-myung administration and should therefore be appropriately reflected in the NSS. At the same time, strategic and realistic choices based on the foreign and security environment should be incorporated into the classified version. This requires a sober assessment of the security environment and a clear articulation of the administration’s value framework. Such efforts will serve as the basis for determining the prioritization of subsequent strategic tasks.

The most sensitive issue related to state affairs agendas is likely to be the ROK-U.S. alliance, given the significant divergence between traditional alliance agendas and those advanced by the Trump administration. In this regard, the NSS should reflect a changing alliance environment rather than a traditional one. U.S. prioritization of its own interests and demands for greater allied self-reliance must be assessed objectively in order to formulate appropriate response strategies.

Domestic security environment assessments must also be strengthened. Evaluations of domestic economic conditions are directly linked to investments in strengthening security capabilities, yet this aspect has been insufficiently reflected in past strategies. In addition, projections of declining troop availability due to demographic decline should be presented candidly, as these changes point to the need for restructuring force composition and capabilities as part of defense reform.

If such impending challenges are not analyzed with rigor, the security environment assessment in the NSS risks remaining superficial. Beyond the issues discussed above, cyber, space, and artificial intelligence should also be incorporated as core components of the NSS. While emphasized in previous administrations, more concrete strategies are now required.

(2) Establishing Core Values and Strategic Tasks

After identifying threats and challenges based on the security environment assessment, the government should articulate its conception of national interests. In doing so, it should clearly specify core values such as liberal democracy, a market economy, free trade, and human rights, and its commitment to advancing these values on the Korean Peninsula and in the international community. Identifying these elements and linking them to concrete action plans is the most critical task in drafting the NSS, as it provides the foundation for government ministries to manage sensitive security issues effectively.

In this context, several points merit consideration. First, with respect to the ROK-U.S. alliance, the NSS should emphasize a comprehensive strategic alliance and include provisions to strengthen strategic cooperation in areas such as nuclear energy, shipbuilding, and defense industry cooperation. Second, growing importance should be attached to message management toward China and Russia. Rather than describing China merely as a neighboring country, the NSS should emphasize strategic cooperation with major powers and reaffirm the ROK-China Strategic Cooperative Partnership. Third, the North Korean nuclear issue remains the most significant existing threat and a core element of previous NSS documents. Careful language is therefore required to maintain momentum toward denuclearization without creating the perception that the government is neglecting the issue, even when acting in good faith. Fourth, the direction of military innovation must be clearly articulated. Sustained attention to defense innovation and reform is required, and this direction should be reflected in the government’s highest-level strategic document. In particular, artificial intelligence and science and technology, which have emerged as key priorities, should be emphasized alongside efforts to build a military that earns public trust.

4. Policy recommendations

(1) Highlight strategic priorities

The NSS should reflect the government’s deliberations in an era of U.S.-China strategic competition, while employing careful language that accounts for diplomatic implications. By emphasizing both the comprehensive strategic alliance with the United States and the strategic cooperative partnership with China, the NSS should allow priorities to be discerned through diplomatic framing without unnecessarily provoking counterparts. Even if the government seeks to avoid explicitly ranking the ROK-U.S. and ROK-China relationships, this too can constitute a sensitive diplomatic issue, necessitating preventive diplomacy through chapter organization, sequencing, and rhetorical nuance.

Shifting from ministry-by-ministry descriptions to function-based structuring would better communicate Korea’s strategic priorities domestically and internationally. The traditional pattern—where progressive administrations lead with North Korea-related issues and conservative administrations emphasize defense or diplomacy—should be reconsidered. Instead, identifying security challenges that threaten economic prosperity and presenting function-based response strategies may be more effective.

In practice, ministry-prioritized drafting has often resulted in the National Security Office merely revising ministry submissions, limiting inter-ministerial communication and undermining the core purpose of the NSS. Adopting a function-based approach, as seen in recent U.S. NSS documents, would encourage ministries to consider how they perceive and contribute to shared strategic tasks.

Economic security should be further elevated. It should not be confined to a single strategic task but rather addressed in a dedicated chapter that enables coordination across ministries beyond the traditional foreign and security apparatus. Economic security is particularly sensitive to changes in the international environment and cannot be addressed by foreign and security agencies alone.

For example, the previous administration structured economic security as a separate chapter titled “Global Economic Security Response Framework,” identifying strategic tasks such as economic security diplomacy, critical supply chains, critical and emerging technologies, and responses to climate change and the low-carbon economy. In contrast, the Lee Jae-myung administration’s State Affairs Planning Committee consolidated these issues into a single task titled “Strengthening Economic Diplomacy Capabilities to Overcome Economic Security and Trade Crises,” an approach that is suboptimal. President Lee’s campaign pledges—including economic diplomacy, trade structure innovation, tax incentives for domestic production in strategic industries, trade security enforcement, logistics security, and food security—present a broader and more detailed agenda that should be actively reflected. Additional elements such as global supply chains, semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and science and technology cooperation should also be incorporated.

(2) Planning for a Sustainable National Security Strategy

A higher-level effort is required to establish a sustainable and substantive NSS that goes beyond campaign pledges and state affairs agendas. While it is natural to include such commitments, excessive reliance on them may hinder the development of a comprehensive national strategy. The personnel and organizations involved in campaign pledges and state affairs agendas are more limited than those engaged in NSS formulation, as is access to sensitive information. Accordingly, the NSS should reflect pledges while also incorporating broader strategic considerations.

Strategic objectives should be feasible and grounded in surrounding geopolitical conditions, statistical data, and scientific assessments. Slogan-like strategic tasks should be avoided. For example, the goal of becoming one of the world’s top four arms exporters is largely rhetorical. Achieving this would require competing with major powers, diversifying export platforms, and integrating emerging technologies such as AI—efforts that cannot be realized in the short term and may provoke countermeasures by competitors.

Instead, the NSS should focus on practical challenges, such as R&D areas for next-generation weapons systems, structural reform of defense firms to diversify exports, and strategies that account for the bloc formation of European defense markets, entry into the U.S. defense market, and expansion into new markets such as Canada.

Budgetary considerations for implementing strategic tasks must also be examined—an area previously underemphasized. For instance, ensuring the safety of overseas nationals requires increasing consular staffing in key regions, which entails budgetary commitments. Defense-related budgeting is even more sensitive. Reviewing budgetary implications prior to NSS publication would facilitate prioritization and ensure consistent implementation, making this an essential—even if informal—procedure.

(3) Strengthening the Status of the NSS through Procedural Improvements

Active participation by senior government leadership is essential during the drafting process. For the NSS to serve as a driver of national security policy rather than a symbolic document, senior officials responsible for implementation must share a common understanding.

Despite the National Security Office’s leading role, the drafting process often involves working-level participation by bureau directors, while ministers and vice ministers engage only at the final reporting stage due to scheduling constraints. This risks producing a document that lacks buy-in at the highest level and becomes effectively dormant upon completion. Accordingly, interim reporting and discussions should take place at the ministerial level, and the National Security Office should facilitate multiple rounds of deliberation through working-level coordination meetings and standing committee sessions prior to final publication.

Broader expert participation is also necessary. While past practices have relied on advisory committees or briefing sessions largely involving government-aligned experts, this approach limits the incorporation of diverse perspectives. Experts play a key role in evaluating and explaining the NSS to the public after publication; without their buy-in, the document risks being undervalued.

When drafting the public version of the NSS, consideration should be given to how Korea’s positions will be interpreted internationally. Sensitive issues, such as third-country threats, should be calibrated carefully, as the audience includes not only domestic readers but also foreign diplomats and Korea specialists. From the outset, the structure and content should be designed with foreign-language editions in mind to avoid awkward translations later. In addition to an English version, Japanese and Chinese editions should be published to underscore commitments to ROK-Japan cooperation and signal sincerity in improving ROK-China relations.

(4) Issuing a Midterm Revised Edition of the National Security Strategy

As the relevance of the NSS may diminish over time, a midterm revision should be considered to update its content. In the United States, the four-year presidential term facilitates natural updates, particularly when a second term results in a revised NSS reflecting policy evolution.

In Korea’s single five-year term system, ministerial turnover typically occurs once or twice during an administration, often leading newly appointed officials to disengage from strategies formulated by predecessors. To preserve the NSS’s functional value, a revised edition should be issued around the third year of the administration. Rather than starting from scratch, this revision could focus on changes in the environment and emerging challenges since initial publication. Such a process would allow the revised NSS to serve as a renewed driver of foreign and security policy in the latter half of the administration.

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