South Korea and Trump’s five percent defense spending in the Indo-Pacific

The end result of a five percent increase will be competitive insecurity—an unstable regional buildup that feeds mistrust and accelerates arms races.

South Korea’s defense spending in 2024 was USD47.5 billion, or around 2.7 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The U.S. is currently pushing its Indo-Pacific allies, particularly the NATO–IP4 (Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand) to follow the European commitment to spend five percent of GDP on defense. It will be a challenge to convince each state to commit—although currently opposed, South Korea may prove to be the easiest.

The Indo-Pacific is not Europe. Not all states agree there is a common adversary, there is no formal alliance structure, and the institutional mechanisms that make NATO rearmament both credible and coherent, doesn’t exist.

First, strategic threat perceptions vary sharply across states. Europe, throughout the Cold War and since the 2014 annexation of Crimea, has viewed Russia as the primary threat. Although not all states have responded militarily, the acceptance of this fact is near universal. In contrast, Indo-Pacific countries hold divergent views on China—the primary competitor of the U.S.

Japan and Australia have aligned closely with the U.S. framing of China as a systemic challenge to the rules-based order. In contrast, South Korea and New Zealand (under varying administrations) have been far more ambivalent with the U.S. framing of China as a systemic challenge to the rules-based order.

This reflects the broader regional stance, with the Philippines (under varying administrations) and other ASEAN members who count China as their largest trading partner and a permanent (as well as historical) feature of the region, considerably more ambivalent with the U.S. framing of China as a systemic challenge to the rules-based order. For some, it is natural and unavoidable.