The post-industrial age is the information age, in which the wealth of corporations and of nations depends on the free flow of and open access to information. In politics as in economics, success and stability are found through transparency and accountability. Democracy is, of course, more than a vehicle for economic success. The UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, like the U.S. Constitution, are based on the principle that we have in common certain intrinsic rights. Issues of democracy are related to fundamental principles of human rights and respect for the individual.
Democracy is based on the rights and responsibilities of individuals and the rule of law.
Through this connection, questions of democracy lie at the center of an emerging debate about the very structure of international relations - the debate over the proper relationship between national sovereignty and an international moral imperative to intervene when human rights are violated in a gross manner. Bosnia, Kosovo and East Timor all raise this issue. Korea and the United States are both democracies, and both are committed to supporting democracy in the international community through the UN and initiatives like the Democracy Forum created by President Kim and President Clinton. As democracies, Korea and the United States now share a political culture, different in some attributes and details but fundamentally the same in essential principles. The final aspect of the Korea-U.S. relationship I would like to talk about today is military security.