SOUTH KOREA: At a packed news conference last week, a formidable coalition of retired South Korean military officers and former defence ministers issued a dire warning. They declared the half-century-old military alliance between South Korea and the US in danger of falling apart, resting the blame squarely at the feet of President Roh Moo-hyun.
They pointed to Mr Roh's determination to regain wartime command of South Korea's military as early as possible. South Korea ceded that authority to the US during the Korean War, and has since vested such power in a series of American generals who have headed the joint command here.
The system, in part, has ensured the intervention of US troops still stationed in the South if communist North Korea launches another invasion. But with a wave of ethnic Korean nationalism sweeping the South, and with the North now viewed in kinder terms in Seoul, Mr Roh has fostered public support for doing away with that system. He has called reclaiming full command from the US the "core of a self-reliant national defence", adding that South Koreans who believed their military wasn't yet up to the task lacked "self-respect".
Yet what has really scared the gaggle of retired generals are indications that the Pentagon may be just as eager to see the switch. The transfer of wartime command had been envisioned for sometime around 2012, but an earlier transfer, some US officials now argue, would let the Pentagon focus more on the current crises in the Middle East and allow more administrative cuts in South Korea.
On Sunday, South Korean officials said US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld had proposed that South Korea assume wartime command of its troops from the US as early as 2009.
US officials have said any agreement would be unrelated to South Korea's new political landscape and instead reflect the country's vastly improved military preparedness. But the developments nevertheless have left the impression among many pro-American South Koreans that Washington has simply grown tired of Seoul's embrace of the belligerent North, as well as the deep-seated anti-Americanism within some circles of South Korea's ruling Uri Party.
Some are hoping that Mr Roh's visit to Washington next month for talks with President Bush may help smooth over cracks in the alliance. But most observers believe the mounting friction is unlikely to change before 2008, when Mr Roh will leave office and US voters will choose Mr Bush's successor.
"President Roh is effectively saying that South Korea really doesn't need America the way we have all these years, and I can't blame the Americans for saying, 'Fine, have it your way'," says Song Young-sun, a legislator with the opposition Grand National Party. "He wants to move South Korea away from the US and closer to North Korea. And what we are saying is that this is just not a safe or smart thing to do."
It has fanned a be-careful-what-you-wish-for mentality among some South Koreans, who now fear that their national security may be put in jeopardy if the transfer of wartime command comes too soon. Although such a deal is likely to yield only a small new reduction of US troops stationed here, opponents say it would loosen the strings that bind the US-South Korean alliance and could even pave the way for an eventual American pull-out.
The most important issue dividing Seoul and Washington these days is how to handle North Korea - a nation, analysts say, that could harbour as many as half a dozen nuclear devices. For the past 10 months, Pyongyang has refused to return to six-party talks aimed at its nuclear disarmament.
The Bush administration has sought to pressurise North Koreans back to negotiations, cracking down on Pyongyang's suspected counterfeiting and money-laundering operations by persuading international financial institutions not to do business with the country.
That policy has been at odds with South Korea's approach of broad economic engagement. Hoping to bring the North out of its communist shell, the South has poured billions of dollars into tourism and industrial projects just across the border.
Mr Roh's administration officials have repeatedly suggested that the threat posed by North Korea has been exaggerated. US officials say the difference in threat perception may be one reason Seoul and Washington are now mired in a series of squabbles over the realignment of US forces.
"If you can't agree on who the enemy is, it raises some pretty fundamental questions about the reasons for your alliance," says a US official.