Blue-Water Navy Program * Abstract: Competing interests of regional countries and the US-China competition in the Asia-Pacific have led a regional security dilemma and debates over power transition between these two strongest powers. This uncertainty about the future landscape of the region pushed South Korea to pursue hedging strategy, using the combination of cooperative and competitive strategic instruments. Considering the security architecture dominated by sea in Asia-Pacific, this study ai 65 blue-water navy program within the framework of its hedging strategy. It 65 will be argued that a more powerful and capable navy will contribute to Stratejileri Stratejileri indirect balancing of China, main trading partner of South Korea and a 13 key actor in dealing with North Korea and also reduce military 6 overdependence of South Korea on the US, its main ally. Such an analysis 25 security context. Keywords: Aircraft carrier, Asia-Pacific, Blue-water navy, Hedging, South Korea. * and Social Sciences, Department of Political Science and International Relations, e-mail:
[email protected]. Asya-P - izlemeye itmi - esine, Anahtar Kelimeler: - 66 Security 1. Introduction Strategies Year: 13 The dramatic rise of countries outside Europe and North America s remarkable Issue: 25 economic performance, demographic trends, increasing military strength, and global political position led to debates over whether the 21st century should be called Asian countries made significant economic progress over the course of the last three decades, it would not be wrong to say that the rise of China has been the main source of change in the Asia- role in regional order has remarkably increased due to its economic and milit Blue-Water Navy Program as a Part of South Korea's Hedging Strategy 1 This role caused changes in the distribution of power, causing not only global change of power to the Asia-Pacific region, but also shifts between actors within the region.