South Korean president has been sitting on the fence for too long and now his neighbors have forced him to take a stance. But worst case scenario would be to have south Korean troops in Ukraine fighting a proxy way just because Korea is not NATO
… what? Korea hasn’t existed since 1945. North Korea isn’t part of NATO, sure. But South Korea IS part of NATO.
So, I’m unclear what you mean.
South Korea is just a “global partner” and protections afforded by NATO article 5 do not extend into “global partners”, only to “full members”. So, from a NATO perspective, it would be very convenient to send South Korean troops (or from any other non-NATO country) to reinforce Ukraine and avoid triggering Putin’s claims of direct NATO involvement. In any case, South Korean cooperation would be needed to help handle an eventual influx of North Korean defectors and POWs
