Dean Acheson's green light district.

Confusion in the South Korean ranks, Bruce Klingner, Asia Times, Jun 17, 2004

South Korean officials, however, have grown increasingly concerned that the United States has begun to marginalize South Korea in its Asia policies. Policymakers, perhaps fearful of a repeat of secretary of state Dean Acheson's infamous 1950 speech delineating Korea as "outside our defense perimeter", cited a recent speech by the head of the US State Department Policy Planning staff that failed to include South Korea among "key bilateral relationships" as indicative of a fundamental shift away from the bilateral alliance and toward a broader focus on China and Japan.

Failing to mention Korea was not the same as giving a green light.

Historians debunk some popular myths about the war, Bruce Steele, University of Pittsburgh, June 22, 2000

But they do have a point about America returning to familiar patterns.

Korean War and Japan's Recovery, Bureau of Public Affairs, U.S. Department of State

Acheson signed the San Francisco Treaty on September 8, 1951, the same day he and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru signed the United States-Japanese Security Treaty. The treaty allowed the United States to station troops in Japan, and made the Japanese islands into an important facet of America's global containment structure.

It's more like a global containment web these days, where every potentially hostile state sees American bases in every direction.

-HJC