On January 7, 2026, the United States government made a monumental announcement, signalling a shift in the era of global politics. It stated its withdrawal from 66 international organizations, following Executive Order 14199, previously issued a year ago. The US has withdrawn from international entities, including the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), and UN Women.
However, in contrast with the cold withdrawal, Washington declared to maintain and even expand its influence on certain international organizations, notably the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Founded in 1865, ITU is a UN agency that sets the international standard of telecommunication technologies, making the US perceive it as a vital battlefield for the Sino-US technology competition. This phenomenon makes it seem that the US foreign policy regarding international organizations is changing from liberalism to strategic transactionalism and realism. That means international organizations are no longer seen as forums for global harmony but as instruments of Realpolitik. Therefore, it is important for South Korea to assess and reposition its role in this global shift.
How does an international organization become a scene of the Hobbesian state of nature? The case of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) can provide some insight. ICANN is an international organization for managing all the domain names and IP addresses of the Internet. For the US, ICANN represents two aspects of national interest: cybersecurity and economic prosperity. If hostile states gained control over the root zone, sensitive extensions like .mil or .gov could be tampered with, undermining U.S. national security. Also, big tech companies, including Google, Amazon, and Microsoft, rely on the fact that the '.com' system works the same in Washington, D.C., Seoul, and Paris. To protect its interests, the US maintained exclusive control over ICANN.
However, this control was not always certain. In 1995, 'netizens' who had a utopian view of the cosmopolitan nature of the internet tried to select the chair of ICANN through a democratic election. However, it was unofficially opposed by the US government, and at last, in 2005, the US government officially announced that the US would maintain its exclusive influence within ICANN. In 2012, countries, particularly China and Russia, voted on ICANN's role to be transferred to a neutral UN agency. However, the US, UK, Canada, and Australia (which are the members of the 'Five Eyes' intelligence community) dissented from it.
US domination over internet governance seemed to continue without any disturbance until the 'Snowden disclosures' happened. Numerous countries began to perceive the US' stewardship of internet governance as a security threat, leading to heavy diplomatic pressure on the US to give up its exclusive control over ICANN. The US eventually gave up its dominance of ICANN but didn't follow China and Russia's proposition to transfer ICANN to a UN agency. Instead, the US turned ICANN into a self-governed, multi-stakeholder, non-profit organization. This way, the US avoided the backlash of the Snowden disclosures and blocked hostile countries from expanding their influence in internet governance.
The case of the developments of US involvement in ICANN gives us several implications: (1) It is not a new thing that the US seeks its national interest, especially in maintaining technological superiority, through expanding its influence in international organizations. Washington will always prioritize technological superiority over traditional international cooperation. (2) Even though South Korea is a leading country in internet technology and owns a huge information industry, its presence in the ICANN case is not in sight. Thinking of the advanced ICT infrastructure and strong manufacturing industry, Seoul has taken limited action in international governance compared to its potential.
Therefore, South Korea should engage more actively to enhance its influence in international technology governance through international organizations. In the upcoming years, emerging technologies such as AI, quantum computing, and brain-computer interfaces will go through a global standardization process. This standardization process will likely be handled in international entities. In this process, it is crucial to preoccupy and perform leadership on these agendas.
I would like to propose two strategies for South Korea. Leveraging Korea's unique history of being a rapid innovator and a non-colonizer, it can play the role of a middle-power arbitrator in ethics and regulation-related agendas. It can offer a democratic alternative that is more agile than the EU's bureaucracy but more regulated than the U.S.'s innovation-first approach. Unlike the EU, whose rights-based approach and 27-state consensus model result in a precautionary bottleneck, South Korea utilizes an 'innovation-balanced' framework. For example, the EU AI Act adopts a risk-based framework with strict regulations for high-risk AI systems, while the Korean AI Act provides a broader framework that emphasizes innovation.
Also, South Korea should leverage its technological advantage and its industry by actively cooperating and creating networks with emerging countries, which can be a potential export destination regarding AI infrastructure. For example, South Korea can offer technical expert training programs, AI safety assessment measures, and cooperative investment with ASEAN countries. Through this, Korea can build an inclusive AI alliance that can overcome the blocked landscape between China and the US.
Seen in this light, the United States' selective disengagement from multilateral institutions and its deepening involvement in technology-focused bodies reflect a broader transformation in global governance. As the ICANN case demonstrates, technological standards now sit at the core of power politics, shaping security, markets, and normative influence. For South Korea, this environment does not just pose risks but also opens space for strategic agency. By extending its innovation-balanced regulatory approach and its cooperative engagement with emerging economies into international governance forums, Seoul can translate technological capability into durable influence and contribute to a more stable and pluralistic architecture of global technology governance.
Taewan Ham is an undergraduate student at Yonsei University, where he majors in Electrical and Electronics Engineering with a specialization in Quantum Informatics and Telecommunication. He is also minoring in Political Science and International Studies. He spent his academic exchange program at Sciences Po Paris and previously worked as an intern in the Korean National Commission of UNESCO. His work focuses on the intersection of science, technology and diplomacy.