[Special Commentary on the US-Iran War] ① The International Order After the Iran War and Korea: The Era of Unending Wars and a Test for De-hegemonization Transition

I. Introduction: Three Wars and the Transformation of the International Order

The 2026 military operation by the United States and Israel against Iranian nuclear facilities cannot be simply viewed as another military conflict in the Middle East. This war, alongside Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the Gaza War in 2023, stands as a significant case demonstrating the transformation of the 21st-century international order through warfare. While these three wars differ in their causes, nature, actors, battlefields, and international repercussions, they share a common thread: they raise questions about the changes the international order, maintained by the US-led system since World War II, is currently undergoing.

Existing discussions on the transformation of the international order have primarily explained these changes through the relative weakening of the United States, the rise of China, Russia's revisionism, and the progression of multipolarization. These shifts in power distribution are undoubtedly a crucial background. While the US remains the world's strongest power, it no longer possesses the same unilateral capacity to shape the order as it did in the immediate post-Cold War era. However, attributing the current transformation of the international order solely to power transitions is insufficient. A more fundamental change stems from the globalization process over the past three decades and the consequent surge in demand for international public goods. The scope of international order management has expanded significantly, encompassing security, trade, finance, energy, health, climate, food, supply chains, and cyberspace. Yet, the capacity and willingness of a single hegemonic power to provide the necessary stability have diminished. Consequently, the current international order faces a structural imbalance characterized by increasing demand for public goods alongside unstable supply.

These transformations are not progressing at the same pace across all domains. In the military and security sphere, power politics and great power competition are rapidly returning. In contrast, economic and financial interdependence remains deep. In climate, health, and energy sectors, the need for cooperation is growing, but the institutional foundations for actual collaboration are weakening. In technology, competition, decoupling, standard-setting, and supply chain restructuring are occurring simultaneously. Therefore, the current order transformation is neither a simple end to the post-Cold War era, nor a repeat of the Cold War, nor a return to a classical multipolar system. It is a non-simultaneous and asymmetrical transition of order where different speeds and logics overlap across various domains.

The Iran War can be considered a critical test case for the transition away from hegemony. Here, 'transition away from hegemony' does not merely imply the disappearance of US influence, but rather that, despite possessing overwhelming power, this power is no longer automatically translated into stable international rules and the provision of public goods. While US power remains significant, its legitimacy, sustainability, predictability, and institutional acceptance are weakening. The current international order is transitioning not to an order without the US, but to an order that cannot be maintained by the US alone.

II. The War Initiated by Trump: A War of Choice Lacking Strategy

The first characteristic of the Iran War is its clear preemptive nature. This war was not initiated in response to an imminent use of force by Iran. It was a military action aimed at preventing Iran from reaching a strategic position as a nuclear threshold state, from which the path to nuclear capability would be irreversible. The action was closer to a preemptive use of force to eliminate future risks with current military power, rather than an exercise of self-defense in the traditional sense.

Beyond the issue of lacking international legal legitimacy, it is significant that this war was initiated by a political decision of President Trump, rather than being based on a clear strategic consensus and preparation. A considerable number of key actors within the US military and intelligence communities were skeptical about the operational military utility, intelligence certainty, potential for escalation, and post-war management costs. Nevertheless, the war proceeded without sufficiently absorbing or institutionally adjusting these cautious viewpoints.

The Iran War exposes a crisis in the operational methods of US hegemony rather than a simple decline of it. When considering the comprehensive capabilities required for threat assessment, objective setting, means combination, persuasion of allies and partners, and post-war order management, this war revealed significant flaws. While the Iran War demonstrated the US's overwhelming military might, it failed to connect that power with consistent political objectives and stable order management.

The strategic confusion revealed during the war's execution was also severe. Firstly, the war's objectives were unclear. It was ambiguous whether the aim was to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities to eliminate its nuclear capability, to coercively alter the Iranian regime's behavior, or even to achieve regime change. The criteria for success were also not established. It was unclear whether the destruction of nuclear facilities, the delay of nuclear development, Iran's return to negotiations, or the restoration of regional deterrence constituted success. An unclear war objective inevitably leads to an unclear war termination criterion.

Preparation for Iran's response was also insufficient. Iran possessed various asymmetric capabilities, including direct military retaliation, proxy force utilization, disruption of maritime traffic, cyberattacks, acceleration of nuclear development, and reduced cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency. Nevertheless, the war does not appear to have been based on a strategic design that sufficiently integrated these multi-layered response possibilities. Notably, the absence of a response to the potential blockade or disruption of the Strait of Hormuz was a prime example of strategic deficiency. The Strait of Hormuz is a critical maritime traffic route directly linked to the global energy market and one of the most obvious leverage points Iran could utilize to compensate for its military inferiority. The moment Iranian nuclear facilities were attacked, the blockade or limited disruption of the strait should have been the first scenario to be considered.

The US focused on the tactical success of its military operations but did not adequately prepare for the chain reactions that would affect the global energy market, allied economies, inflation, financial markets, and domestic politics. This resulted from understanding war solely as a military issue and underestimating its complex crisis nature, which extends to economic, technological, social, and allied politics. Modern warfare is not confined to the battlefield; it rapidly spreads to energy prices, maritime insurance, financial markets, supply chains, public opinion, and alliance management.

Ultimately, the Iran War was a war of choice, not a war of necessity. However, the consequences of that choice made it difficult even to restore the pre-war status quo stably. The physical damage to nuclear facilities may have temporarily delayed Iran's nuclear development timeline. However, a nuclear program is not solely comprised of buildings and equipment; it is a combination of scientists, technicians, organizations, accumulated knowledge, industrial infrastructure, political will, and perceptions of security threats. Destroying facilities does not eliminate the socio-technical foundation of nuclear capability. On the contrary, as the analysis of the Osirak airstrike shows, preemptive strikes on nuclear facilities, while possibly causing short-term delays, can lead to the program's undergrounding, dispersal, increased concealment, and accelerated drive towards weaponization in the long run.

The Iran War cannot be solely attributed to Trump's impulsive personal decision or a failure of Middle East policy. Instead, it demonstrates that during the transition away from hegemony, US power remains overwhelming, but its strategic capacity to translate that power into order has weakened. It showed that the ability to design a new international order, stabilize alliances, and induce long-term behavioral changes in adversaries through the use of military force was not sufficiently exercised. The gap between military capability and the capacity for strategic order-building is the most significant implication of the Iran War.

III. The Difficulty of War Termination: An Era of Unending Wars

The second characteristic of the Iran War is its depiction as a war that is difficult to terminate. The non-termination of the war stems, first, from the inherent flaws in the war itself. The Iran War lacked clear objectives, had ambiguous criteria for military success, and insufficient planning for the post-war political state. Wars with unclear objectives inevitably have unclear termination criteria.

However, the difficulty of terminating the Iran War is part of a broader structural change that permeates the Ukraine War, the Gaza War, and the Iran War. Today's wars do not exhibit the pattern of relatively clear termination seen in the past through discernible military victory or defeat, territorial adjustments, armistice agreements, and great power guarantees. Wars are initiated but not concluded, ceasefires are achieved but do not transition to peace, and agreements are signed but the possibility of recurrence is not eliminated. Wars begin as battlefield events but subsequently persist as long-term crises entangled with domestic politics, identity, technology, economic security, international norms, and alliance politics.

Rationalist theories of war explain war fundamentally as a failure of negotiation. If states can accurately predict the costs and outcomes of war, it is rational for both sides to reach an agreement reflecting those anticipated outcomes rather than engaging in war. Wars occur when there is incomplete information, misjudgment of the opponent's resolve, distrust in the fulfillment of promises, or indivisibility of the issues. From this perspective, war termination becomes possible when beliefs are adjusted through the costs incurred on the battlefield, and perceptions of power distribution and levels of resolve converge.

However, in today's wars, this convergence process is structurally delayed. Wars generate information, but this information often strengthens hostile identities and political resolve rather than enabling negotiation. As war costs increase, situations are repeatedly observed where both sides find it difficult to retreat due to the costs already incurred, rather than reaching a realistic compromise. In such cases, war becomes not just the result of negotiation failure but also a process that generates new political identities and survival logics.

First, the nature of war is shifting from a war of interests to a war of identity. In the traditional sense, war was understood as a conflict over territory, resources, spheres of influence, or security interests. These interests, though contentious, can be subject to negotiation, compensation, division, or phased implementation. However, in major contemporary wars, the core issues are increasingly intertwined with identity, history, regime survival, collective memory, and the very reason for a nation's existence. For Russia, Ukraine is not merely a geopolitical buffer zone but is considered part of the Russian worldview and imperial identity. For the Israeli government, Gaza is not simply a space of security threat but is linked to national survival, collective memory, and the legitimacy of domestic right-wing politics. For the Iranian regime, nuclear capability has become a symbol not of military technology but of the revolutionary regime's autonomy, resistance to Western pressure, and regime survival.

As the stakes of war become intertwined with identity, the space for compromise narrows. Negotiation can be perceived not as an adjustment of interests but as a negation of self-existence. Leaders, aware of escalating war costs, fear that retreat will lead to domestic political repercussions and regime weakening. War becomes not a matter of inter-state negotiation but of leadership and regime survival. The continuation of war, from the leader's perspective, becomes a strategy for political survival rather than irrational stubbornness.

Second, changes in weapon systems are enhancing the war-sustaining capacity of weaker parties. In 20th-century warfare, stronger powers could overwhelm their opponents' military capabilities through air superiority, long-range precision strikes, armored forces, naval power, and information dominance, thereby compelling war termination. However, recent wars demonstrate that technological diffusion is reshaping asymmetric warfare in new ways. While the full-scale battlefield utilization of artificial intelligence remains in its nascent stages, the proliferation of drones, low-cost precision weapons, commercial satellites, distributed communication networks, cyber means, mobile missiles, and small unmanned systems has significantly increased the war-sustaining capabilities of weaker actors.

The war in Ukraine has shown that even relatively weaker nations can delay decisive victory by stronger powers through the use of drones, missiles, distributed air defense systems, external intelligence support, and the military repurposing of civilian technology. Similarly, while Iran cannot compare to the US and Israel in terms of conventional military strength, it can impose long-term costs by leveraging missiles, drones, proxy forces, maritime disruption capabilities, cyber capabilities, and geographical depth. Stronger powers may win battles, but weaker powers can make wars unending.

Third, economic security variables are further complicating war termination. In the era of globalization, wars are not fought solely on the battlefield. Straits, ports, energy prices, insurance premiums, financial markets, supply chains, food prices, and the movement of semiconductors and critical minerals all become part of the war. In the Iran War, the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz became a key factor in war termination. It was not merely a tool of military retaliation but an economic security lever capable of pressuring the entire global economy. Even without a full blockade, Iran could destabilize global energy prices and logistics costs through limited military actions, attacks on vessels, mining threats, increased insurance premiums, and market anxiety.

Thus, economic interdependence can serve as a basis for war deterrence, but it can also be a means of prolonging war. Warring parties leverage the vulnerabilities of the global economy, not just the military strength of their adversaries, to externalize costs. Energy importers, supply chain-dependent nations, and countries with open financial markets bear the costs of war even if they are not direct belligerents. Post-conflict negotiations no longer consist solely of military issues. Sanctions relief, crude oil exports, financial access, freedom of navigation, reconstruction costs, refugee issues, return to international organizations, and nuclear inspection regimes all become part of the termination conditions.

Finally, there is the issue of the absence of a reliable third party to guarantee peace. War does not end solely with an agreement between the parties. Especially when mutual distrust is deep, the risk of renewed attack post-war is high, and there is no independent mechanism to punish violations of agreements, termination requires a third party to provide security assurances and verification. In the current international order, this guarantee function is weakening. During the Cold War, while the bipolar US-Soviet dynamic fueled dangerous proxy wars and regional conflicts, paradoxically, mechanisms for management and pressure between the great powers sometimes operated. In the immediate post-Cold War era, unilateral US dominance and the intervention of international organizations played a guarantor role in some conflicts. However, trust in US guarantor capacity and willingness has weakened, China prefers selective intervention, and Russia acts as a revisionist player rather than an order guarantor. The UN Security Council is prone to paralysis due to great power confrontation, and the verification and peacekeeping capabilities of international organizations depend on the political acceptance of the parties involved.

This issue is also critical in the Iran War. Even if a memorandum of understanding is signed and a provisional deadline of 60 days or similar is set, without a guarantor structure to uphold the agreement, it amounts to a temporary freeze rather than a conclusion of hostilities. Iran needs assurance that the US and Israel will not attack again. The US and Israel demand verification that Iran will not resume or conceal its nuclear development. However, neither side trusts the other's promises, and third parties lack the sufficient authority and means to enforce those promises. Under these conditions, a ceasefire may be possible, but peace will be difficult; negotiations may occur, but termination will be delayed; and crises may be mitigated but can resume at any time.

IV. Changes in Alliance Relations: The Cost of Uncoordinated Warfare

The third characteristic of the Iran War is that it exposed the inherent tensions within US alliance relations. The war demonstrated the US's continued ability to conduct global military operations through its alliance network. However, it also revealed that US alliance politics no longer reliably provide the same level of strategic coordination, normative persuasion, and burden-sharing legitimacy as in the past. While allies rely on overwhelming US military power, they found themselves in a situation where they could not adequately predict when, where, or for what political purposes that power would be used.

The most difficult position is occupied by US allies in the Gulf region. For a long time, they have relied on the US security umbrella to counter Iran's military pressure and regional power balance shifts. However, the Iran War created a situation where they simultaneously faced the benefits of protection and the costs of entanglement. Gulf states directly supported or at least tacitly approved US operations, but consequently became the most immediate targets of Iranian retaliation. US military bases, energy facilities, ports, maritime traffic routes, and civilian infrastructure all became vulnerable points that Iran and its proxies could target. While the military operations were decided in Washington and Tel Aviv, the geographic costs of retaliation were first borne by the Gulf allies.

In the post-war phase, they faced further burdens. The US sought to share the political responsibility and costs of military operations with its allies, demanding financial and diplomatic contributions from Gulf states for post-war stabilization, reconstruction, reparations, energy market stabilization, and maritime security maintenance. Protection is not provided free of charge, and the price of protection returns in the form of post-hoc invoices, strengthening the transactional nature of the alliance. The issue is that these invoices result from decisions in which the allies had limited participation. A structure has formed where they are marginalized in the decision-making process but centralized in cost-sharing.

The relationship with Israel also cannot be simply explained as a unified front. The US and Israel shared the strategic goal of deterring Iran's nuclear capability and, in the initial phase of the war, effectively formed a partnership. However, as the war progressed, their interests diverged. For Israel, Iran's nuclear capability was perceived as an existential threat, making the goal of military operations closer to the irreversible elimination of nuclear capability for as long as possible. For the US, the Iran issue was part of a broader strategic calculus connected to the Middle East's overall power balance, the energy market, domestic politics, competition with China, the war in Ukraine, and alliance management. While they perceived the same enemy, they did not envision the same post-war order.

This divergence became more pronounced concerning war objectives and termination conditions. Israel inevitably preferred sustained pressure on Iran's military and nuclear infrastructure and likely considered the weakening or internal destabilization of the Iranian regime as strategic gains. In contrast, the US had to simultaneously consider de-escalation of conflict, energy market stability, alleviating allied burdens, and preventing strategic opportunities for China and Russia. Although partners at the war's outset, the two countries revealed different preferences regarding the method of termination, negotiation terms, and post-war monitoring mechanisms as the war protracted. This demonstrates that alliances are not automatically bound by the existence of an enemy but can only be stably maintained when post-war political objectives are shared.

European allies also found themselves in a contradictory position. While they had interests in the Iranian nuclear issue and Middle East stability, they were not subject to substantive consultation during the decision-making process to initiate the war. However, after the war began, they were pressured to choose whether to support the US position, express concerns about international law, or contribute to energy market stability and maritime security. Although Europe was not a protagonist in initiating the war, it was mobilized for its diplomatic justification and the management of its economic aftermath. As a result, European allies had to strike a difficult balance between distancing themselves from US military actions and maintaining alliance cohesion.

The situation for Asian allies was not significantly different. Although not direct parties to the Iran War, dependence on Middle Eastern energy, the safety of maritime routes, oil prices, financial market fluctuations, changes in US strategic resource allocation, and the deterrence posture towards China all affected Asian allies. In particular, if the US consumed military and diplomatic energy in the Middle East, questions inevitably arose regarding the maintenance of deterrence in the Indo-Pacific and the credibility of alliance commitments. While Asian allies found it difficult to openly criticize US intervention in the Middle East, they could not help but worry about the costs that intervention imposed on their security environment.

The core issue in alliance politics revealed by the Iran War is that allies are made to share the costs and blame of a war initiated without coordination. Allies have limited say in the decision-making process for initiating war but are required to act as responsible partners in bearing the post-war economic shocks, making diplomatic statements, providing military support, implementing sanctions, and cooperating on maritime security. The US expects prompt support and cooperation from its allies, but allies become disgruntled when they have to bear the costs of a war they did not sufficiently consult on. At such times, alliances risk being perceived not as strategic communities but as political mechanisms for distributing crisis costs.

Nevertheless, the Iran War was not an event that demonstrated the dissolution of alliances. Rather, it confirmed the continued necessity of alliances. Simultaneously, it shows that the nature of alliances is changing. If past alliances were exchanges of protection and loyalty, today's alliances are becoming complex negotiating bodies that require coordination of risks, costs, information, technology, legitimacy, and domestic political burdens. While the US continues to conduct global strategy through its alliance network, its allies are no longer automatic supporters. The Iran War demonstrates that alliances are shifting from mechanisms of military cohesion to tests of strategic coordination.

V. Shaking the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Order

The fourth characteristic of the Iran War is that it left a profound paradox for the nuclear non-proliferation order. The US and Israel launched military operations to prevent Iran from completing its nuclear capabilities. Superficially, this war was an action to prevent nuclear proliferation. However, the method employed could weaken the normative basis of the non-proliferation order. While preemptive strikes to prevent nuclear proliferation might delay a specific country's nuclear program in the short term, they can, in the long term, teach other countries both the necessity of nuclear armament and the risks of being a nuclear threshold state.

The non-proliferation order has fundamentally operated on two premises. First, non-nuclear states are guaranteed the right to peaceful use of nuclear energy and certain security and economic benefits in exchange for not developing nuclear weapons. Second, when suspicions of nuclear development arise, the issue can be managed through IAEA inspections, UN Security Council actions, sanctions, negotiations, and diplomatic assurances. The Iranian nuclear issue has also long been handled within this framework. Iran was suspected of nuclear development, and the international community attempted to manage it through sanctions and negotiations, as well as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

However, the Iran War exposed the fragility of these diplomatic and institutional management approaches. When negotiations and sanctions prove insufficient, IAEA inspections and reports fail to resolve political mistrust, and great power agreements are shaken by domestic political changes, the nuclear issue again shifts to a military option. The problem is that military options do not resolve the nuclear issue; rather, they make its nature more unstable. Nuclear facilities can be destroyed, but the knowledge, organization, scientific personnel, and political will necessary for nuclear development are difficult to destroy. On the contrary, a state that has been attacked may perceive nuclear armament more strongly as the ultimate guarantee of regime survival.

The Iran War highlighted the danger posed by states with nuclear potential. These are states that, while not possessing fully developed nuclear deterrence, have secured significant technology and material foundations for nuclear armament. Such states can become targets of preemptive strikes by external powers concerned about nuclear proliferation. At the same time, lacking fully developed nuclear deterrence, they also lack reliable retaliatory capabilities for self-protection. This intermediate state is highly unstable. If nuclear armament is completely abandoned, they may become vulnerable to external threats; if they approach nuclear armament, the risk of preemptive strikes increases. The Iran War dramatically illustrated the vulnerability of this nuclear threshold state.

This situation offers ambivalent lessons to other potential nuclear-developing states. One lesson is that remaining in a state of nuclear threshold is dangerous. If exposed to the outside world without sufficiently completing nuclear capabilities, they can become targets of military strikes. Another lesson is that negotiations and limited transparency do not necessarily guarantee safety. If a nuclear program is used as a bargaining chip and some inspections and agreements are accepted, but external attacks cannot ultimately be prevented, states may become more inclined to conceal, underground, disperse, and accelerate their programs. This is a very negative signal for the non-proliferation order.

Another issue with preemptive strikes is their potential for normative generalization. If the US and Israel struck Iranian nuclear facilities on the grounds of future threats, other countries might seek to apply similar logic to their own security environments. If a state justifies the preemptive use of force on the grounds that another country might develop nuclear capabilities, missile capabilities, cyber attack capabilities, or AI-based military capabilities in the future, the threshold for the use of force in the international order will inevitably be lowered. International law recognizes self-defense against actual or imminent attacks, but has strictly limited preemptive wars based on uncertain future threats. If this standard is weakened, great powers will be able to use military force more frequently based on their own threat perceptions.

Of course, the argument that nuclear proliferation cannot be tolerated is also strong. The regional security landscape can become fundamentally destabilized if a hostile state acquires nuclear weapons. Nuclear armament has significant implications for conventional military balance, alliance relations, crisis management, arms races, and the possibility of nuclear domino effects. Concerns exist that if Iran completes its nuclear armament, it could spur nuclear choices by other Middle Eastern countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt. Therefore, preventing nuclear proliferation remains an important international public good. The question is how to achieve it. If the normative principles and institutional procedures of the non-proliferation order are undermined to uphold it, the very legitimacy of the non-proliferation order could be weakened.

The Iran War demonstrates how difficult the balance is between non-proliferation and deterrence, coercion and negotiation, inspection and security assurance. For the non-proliferation order to function, merely pressuring nuclear-developing states is insufficient. The security assurances and economic benefits, as well as improvements in international standing, that can be obtained by abandoning or limiting nuclear development must be credible. At the same time, verification and punishment for agreement violations must also be clear.

Ultimately, the Iran War shows that the nuclear non-proliferation order is not a simple technology control regime but a complex order integrating security order, regional order, great power politics, international legal legitimacy, and perceptions of regime survival. The future of non-proliferation will not be determined solely by whether nuclear facilities are destroyed. It depends on the extent to which the security environment that makes nuclear armament unnecessary and the international political conditions that foster trust in nuclear agreements can be reconstructed.

VI. Perspectives of Competing Nations

Another significant meaning of the Iran War lies in what the US's competing nations have learned from this conflict. The first lesson China and Russia have drawn from the Iran War is the material limitations of the United States. The US still possesses the world's most powerful military and maintains an overwhelming advantage in long-range precision strikes, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities, carrier strike groups, strategic bombers, missile defense, and cyber capabilities. However, the issue is not whether the US can conduct military operations, but whether it can sustain high-intensity operations over multiple theaters for an extended period. It has become evident that if a war transitions from a short-term shock to a long-term war of attrition, even overwhelming US military power is constrained by its industrial base and inventory. This is important strategic information for China and Russia. While US military power remains the world's strongest, its force is not limitless. In particular, precision munitions and interceptor assets are core resources that are consumed most rapidly in modern warfare. Missile defense systems are technologically sophisticated but costly, interceptor stocks are limited, and the production capacity of the defense industry may not keep pace with the rate of consumption on the battlefield. From the perspective of competing nations, this signals not that they can directly overwhelm the US, but that they can weaken US military superiority through long-term attrition and multi-theater pressure.

The second lesson is the limit of US resolve. The Iran War demonstrated that the US still possesses the will to use military force, but simultaneously revealed its potential for caution or avoidance regarding escalation and prolonged conflict following its use. Particularly, the Trump-era US, while favoring strong rhetoric and bold strikes, tended to avoid situations where those strikes would lead to large-scale ground wars, prolonged occupations, substantial financial burdens, or domestic political backlash. Competing nations can discern an important pattern here: the US can attack, but it is reluctant to stay long and manage the aftermath. The US can impose punishment, but it is unwilling to bear the sustained costs required to rebuild order.

This perception can influence the risk-taking propensity of competing nations. When calculating the possibility of US military response in the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea, and the East China Sea, China will assess not only the US's initial response capability but also its long-term political resolve. Russia, too, through the wars in Ukraine and Iran, can strengthen its assessment that the US faces difficulties in sustaining high-intensity engagement on multiple fronts simultaneously. They may conclude that even with overwhelming power, the US is likely to move towards negotiation, retreat, or limited intervention when faced with strong pressure and long-term cost imposition. Particularly, if Trump-style diplomacy operates by combining transactions, pressure, displays of force, and cost avoidance, competing nations will view US resolve not as a consistent strategic commitment but as an object of political negotiation.

The third lesson is the multidimensionality of US vulnerability. US vulnerability does not stem solely from a lack of military assets. It manifests across multiple layers: diplomatic legitimacy, economic interdependence, alliance credibility, domestic political division, and the acceptance of international norms. The Iran War demonstrated that while the US still possesses overwhelming strike capability, that strike does not automatically gain international legitimacy.

Economic interdependence has also become a channel exposing US vulnerability. The Iran War showed that military crises in the Middle East can rapidly transmit to oil prices, maritime insurance, logistics, inflation, financial markets, supply chains, and supply chain instability. Although the US has increased its energy independence, it is not immune to instability in the global economy as a whole. Furthermore, US allies, particularly energy-importing nations in Europe and Asia, are far more vulnerable to Middle Eastern crises. Competing nations take note of this. Even without directly attacking the US mainland, they can increase US strategic burdens by pressuring the economic vulnerabilities of US allies. Military competition is no longer confined to the battlefield; it expands by mediating the vulnerabilities of global markets and supply chains.

However, all these lessons do not directly translate into strategic opportunities for China and Russia. The Iran War revealed US vulnerabilities, but it also sent warnings to competing nations. First, the US is still a country capable of conducting long-range precision strikes. While the consistency of US strategy may be questioned, the possibility of the US using military force under certain conditions has not disappeared. In fact, unpredictability is also a burden for competing nations. The impulsiveness and ostentatiousness of Trump-era diplomacy may cause anxiety for allies, but it also serves as a complicating factor for calculations by competing nations. Second, the precedent of preemptive strikes means that the competing nations' own strategic assets could also fall within the scope of the same logic.

Second, the precedent of preemptive strikes implies that the competing nations' own strategic assets could also be subject to the same logic. If the US and Israel struck Iranian nuclear facilities on the grounds of future threats, China and Russia cannot help but worry about the spread of preemptive logic surrounding their own core military and technological infrastructure, proxy forces, gray zone operational bases, or strategic strongholds. While the weakening of international norms may seem to grant greater freedom of action to great powers, it simultaneously exposes all great powers' strategic assets to a more unstable state of exception.

Third, US weaknesses do not necessarily equate to China's or Russia's capacity to supply order. This is the most significant structural implication confirmed by the Iran War. China and Russia can criticize US mistakes, attack US double standards, and emphasize the fatigue of US hegemony. However, whether they possess the capacity and credibility to stably supply international public goods as a replacement for the US is an entirely different matter. Following its invasion of Ukraine, Russia is perceived not as an order guarantor but as its destroyer. While China is expanding its economic scale and diplomatic influence, it has not yet secured the level of credibility to replace the US in terms of supplying security public goods, financial stability, protecting maritime traffic routes, guaranteeing conflict resolution, and providing normative legitimacy.

In this regard, the current international order is not simply a phase of hegemonic transition. While US power is diminishing, the power of alternative hegemons is also insufficient. The US can no longer manage all global issues unilaterally, but China and Russia also cannot fill that void unilaterally.

VII. Implications for South Korea and Conclusion

The analysis above carries implications for South Korea on three levels. The Iran war is a Middle Eastern military crisis, but its significance is not confined to the Middle East. It is an event that simultaneously reveals the modus operandi of American hegemony, the difficulty of ending wars, the weakening of alliance coordination, the fragility of the nuclear non-proliferation order, and the strategic learning of rival powers. South Korea cannot view this war as merely a crisis in a distant region. South Korea is a key member of the U.S. alliance network, is directly exposed to the North Korean nuclear threat, and is a nation that maintains prosperity through global interdependence in energy, supply chains, technology, and finance. Therefore, the changes in the international order following the Iran war are not peripheral conditions for South Korea's foreign and security strategy, but the core environment that defines South Korea's survival and prosperity.

First, at the level of U.S.-South Korea relations, South Korea must soberly recognize the changing nature of alliances. The United States remains the cornerstone of South Korean security and plays an irreplaceable role in extended deterrence, the U.S. Forces Korea, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities, the nuclear umbrella, advanced military technology, and global financial and technological networks. However, the Iran war demonstrated that an alliance with the United States does not automatically guarantee stability. While the U.S. possesses overwhelming military power, its use is not always sufficiently coordinated with allies or does not always lead to the stability of the international order. Allies need U.S. protection, but at the same time, they may have to bear the costs and risks of entanglement arising from unilateral U.S. choices of war.

South Korea's strategy toward the U.S. needs to move beyond the dichotomy of simple alliance strengthening or distancing. South Korea must maintain its relationship with the U.S. as the cornerstone of its security, but transform that relationship from passive dependence to one of active contribution and influence. Influence in an alliance is not secured by mere declarations. It is secured through information sharing, joint planning, consultation on crisis scenarios, military, industrial, and technological contributions, and economic security cooperation capabilities. South Korea must institutionalize strategic consultations with the U.S. on issues that directly affect its security, not only North Korea but also the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea, Middle Eastern crises, energy security, supply chain shocks, cyber attacks, military artificial intelligence, and space security, as regular agenda items.

Second, at the level of the North Korean nuclear issue, the Iran war carries even more direct and weighty implications. North Korea is likely to have observed the Iran war most keenly. From North Korea's perspective, this war offers clear lessons. Libya, which abandoned its nuclear program, could not avoid regime collapse; Ukraine, which possessed nuclear weapons but gave them up, was invaded by Russia; and Iran, which opted for negotiations and limited nuclear agreements, ultimately became a target of military strikes. In contrast, North Korea, which has advanced its nuclear capabilities, strengthened strategic ties with major powers, and enhanced the survivability of its nuclear forces, has not been directly attacked. The conclusion North Korea is likely to draw from this comparison is not the necessity of denuclearization, but the necessity of possessing nuclear weapons.

Therefore, South Korea's policy toward North Korea's nuclear weapons needs to be redesigned with a more realistic and multi-layered approach. Denuclearization should still be maintained as a long-term goal. Officially recognizing North Korea's possession of nuclear weapons or accepting the collapse of the nuclear non-proliferation order would be inconsistent with both South Korea's security and international principles. However, to make denuclearization possible in the long term, greater attention must be paid to managing the risks that need to be managed right now. While distinguishing between the final goal of denuclearization and the intermediate goal of threat reduction, the policy's core tasks should be to prevent further advancement in the quantity and quality of nuclear weapons, prevent miscalculation during crises, manage the threshold for nuclear use, enhance transparency in missile tests and deployments, restore mechanisms to prevent military conflict, and secure channels to prevent accidental escalation.

Third, at the level of participation in global governance, South Korea must redefine its role. The Iran war demonstrated that no single great power can any longer unilaterally supply the international order. While the U.S. remains the most powerful nation, it cannot single-handedly manage security crises, economic shocks, technological norms, non-proliferation issues, and climate, health, and supply chain crises in all regions. China and Russia, while critical of U.S. vacuums, lack the capacity and legitimacy to fill those vacuums in a reliable manner. Europe has strong normative capabilities but limited military enforcement capacity, and the Global South is expanding its influence but has not yet acted as an integrated order supplier. We have entered an era where the demand for order is increasing, but the supply of order is becoming fragmented and unstable.

Under these conditions, the role of middle powers becomes important. Of course, South Korea cannot design the entire world order or replace the great powers. However, the gaps in order can be partially filled not by a single nation, but by a coalition of nations with capabilities and trust in specific areas. The task and, at the same time, the possibility for South Korea, which has moved from being a consumer of order to a creator of order, in the context of changes in the international order following the Iran war, is significant. ■

■ Jeon Jae-seong_Director of the East Asia Institute, Professor of Political Science and International Relations, Seoul National University

■ Responsible for and edited by: Lee Sang-jun_EAI Researcher
    Inquiries: 02 2277 1683 (ext. 211) | leesj@eai.or.kr