Dictatorial Regimes In Myanmar, Pakistan, South Korea Essay Example

Pakistan, Myanmar and South Korea are close in political terms not only on the basis of the dictatorial nature of their political regime. The similarity of the political system in these countries consists in a particular form of their modes and tools of their retention in power. First of all, we are talking about the role of the military, which at the time of gaining independence by these countries under the constant threat of war proved to be the only legitimate force able to take the reins into the hands. While South Korea's change of power could still be carried out by means of elections, in Pakistan and Myanmar electoral tool was completely replaced by military coups. Although today the military as an institution is formally outside of the political elite, they either have created civilian regimes for themselves, as in Myanmar, or continue to use their influence through the threat of military conflict (South Korea and Pakistan) for the correction of the political situation in their own interests. Also, the regimes of the three Asian countries are close because they have used a permanent military threat as a legitimizing factor of their dictatorial rule. If in the case of Pakistan and South Korea, it was about such an issue of national honor as Kashmir and the Korean conflict, respectively, in Myanmar it was a civil war between several dozen ethnic groups. However, if the military regime in Korea did hold the reforms and dictatorship really was necessary for the success of reforms, Pakistan and Myanmar were classic corrupted military bureaucracies.
All three regimes took advantage of their foreign allies during the Cold War. For example, Pakistan has provided its territory for US and Chinese military bases in exchange for which it received from these countries regular financial support, which allowed the military regime to hold in power. A similar model of "sharing its territory for political support" was chosen by Myanmar. For it, China was the only allies that helped to circumvent Western sanctions and come out of isolation. Also providing its territory for military bases, South Korea was able to get probably the greatest dividends, as the defense treaty with the US contains an obligation to protect Seoul in case of aggression against it. It is clear that we are talking about the fact that in addition to financial assistance, South Korea conquered guarantees of the U.S. support in the conflict with North Korea.
In our opinion, foreign policy support for dictatorial regimes of countries that are of strategic importance to U.S. national interests is extremely essential. In any case, the US can influence the regime and force it to go to the democratic transit only by giving favorable conditions for cooperation. Otherwise, pressure and antagonism on the US side will urge that regime to the choice of China, which does not bind the bilateral relations to the nature of the political regime. For Washington, it means to give Beijing one more sphere of influence in Asia.