Oh my god. I love this idea.
http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=2338622
North and South Korea are all growed up now. The South has a fat army, probably one strong enough to hold off the North without our help. I say we pack up the troops, move the carriers and bombers out of range, and leave it to them to work things out on the peninsula. Many South Koreans complain that we’re stopping their efforts at reconciliation with the North. Okay. It’s all theirs! Go for it!
But…but…they might need us! :eek: What if they lock themselves out of the house? What if they have a flat tire somewhere on a lonely road at night? Who will cook for them, or do their laundry? My BABIEEEEES!!
Why not just leave them where they are just in case? If North Korea wants to misbehave, I think having the extra 37,000 American troops will be some deterrence. They might not mean much when compared to the million plus South Korean army but the fact that there are Americans fighting if a war happens should guarantee that America opens a can of whoop ass instead of staying back and leaving the Koreas to their own business.
And why is S. Korea blaming the US for hurting reconciliation efforts? N. Korea’s erratic behavior doesn’t seem like a good faith effort to kiss and make up. It looks more like they’re posturing for more international aid because they can’t manage an economy.
Minor knitpick, the South Korean Army is more in the 600,000 strong range, not a million plus. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/rok/army.htm
Still the point remains, since the South Korean Army has much better equipment, better training, is sitting behind a minefield, and would fight a defensive war, it is at least even with the million strong North Korean forces.
I do think we should keep the forces there, as maintaining a presence in Eastern Asia is vital for the US’s future security, and any blaim on the reconciliation efforts should be placed on N. Korea, given that they have been all over the place policy wise, are run by an horrible dictator, and just seem to want more foreign aid because they haven’t figured out how to feed half as many people as South Korea with a lot more land. And even if the US pulled out of Korea, that would keep N. Korea from still being a threat to the US, given the damage they could do to the US economy through attacks on Japan and South Korea, not to mention direct attacks on the US itself.
I made this suggestion in a thread about this problem a while back. In another thread I decided it was a bad idea, because the thing is, N Korea basically lives on the military equipment it can sell to the rest of the world. So they do have to be stopped, one way or another, from getting nuclear arms because that would be just one more thing they could sell to the rest of the world.
Believe me, if not for this, I’d want our troops out of there ASAP.
I think the possibility that the U.S. might have to attack North Korea is EXACTLY why they might want the troops out of there.
This is the nightmare scenario - the U.S. is forced to take out the nuclear facilities in North Korea. North Korea responds by attacking American troops in South Korea. At that point, the U.S. is forced to escalate the situation into a full-scale war against a nuclear power.
Take American troops out, and you remove that threat. You can force South Korea to defend itself, and the U.S. then has the flexibility to intervene in such a war at a place and time of its choosing.
I believe, at minimum, the US should move its troops away from the DMZ to another part of the country. There is no sense in US troops getting massacred in the first days of a new Korean war, when the N.Koreans will initially have the element of surprise and the upper hand.
I believe that eventually we should move most of our troops out, but we should keep an air base or two in Korea.
Consider: Maybe the reason South Korea has not developed a N-bomb is because the US has promised to protect them and, like the wedding ring, the presence of significant US armed forces is the real and visible symbol of that promise. Do you really want both Koreas glaring at each other across the DMZ with THE BOMB in their hip pockets?
Admittedly, the present administration is not doing much to cut down on the glaring and seems to be actively poo-pooing any attempt by the South to implement a “Sunshine Policy.”
In another thread recently, I opined that perhaps it’s the Chinese who are getting off very lightly on this issue. My understanding is that China is NK’s biggest supporter - far more so than Russia. Also, North Korea, being in the upper right corner of China, shares a hefty border with China, and is other wise bordered with only South Korea.
If there’s one country which can, and should, bring pressure to bear on the North Korean’s it’s China it seems to me.
Hence, the next question is… besides military strength (nobody wants to see China and the USA go at it head to head) just what sort of pressure could we, in the Wst, bring to bear on the Chinese to in turn bring pressure to bear on the North Koreans?
I’d love to hear my fellow Dopers opinions on this actually. At this point in time, the single greatest bargaining chip I could think of would be to threaten to take th Olympic Games off the Chinese. That would freak them out, at a losing face point of view, like you wouldn’t believe.
The problem is, we can’t pull out of South Korea. If we pull out, someone else has to move in. The rest of the world is too dependant on the shipyards in South Korea (Hyundai is the world’s largest shipbuilder and they can built cargo ships in less than half the time of their nearest competitor) for one thing. So long as North Korea remains a threat to South Korea, someone’s got to be there to help the South Koreans if the North decides to invade. If those shipyards are damaged, or out of commission for too long, the feeble world economy will take a nosedive like nobody’s business.
I don’t think so. China doesn’t like North Korea. They give the NK’s nothing, and mostly seem to want to keep them quiet.
I agree! S. Korea has been living off us for too damn long! This is a country that has a huge trade surplus with the US…and it is high time we left…53 years is a bit long for a “temporary” occupation. To my mind, we allow ourslves to be used by S Korea:
their politicians blame us for the friction with the North; while we expend billions stationing troops there.
Move em out!
The way I understand it is US troops are there by UN mandate, to guard the demilitarized zone.
It would also be well to remember that the last time nobody was watching, the North Coreans took over the entirety of the Peninsula save for the Pusan Perimeter. It took the United States several weeks to assemble the troops needed to simply stem the NC advance.
If I recall correctly, the North Corean Army tries to maintain a 2:1 advantage in manpower over the South, alarmingly consistent with the minimum advantage necessary to successfully battle against an enemy according to Sun Tzu.
I think this is a great idea as well. It will force everyone in that region to act responsibly. It will force China to engage North Korea, because they know that if we leave and North Korea is still a threat then both South Korea and Japan will build nuclear weapons. This is something that China does not want to happen. Currently the Chinese seem to be trying to triangulate with us and the North Koreans. If we leave this stops. Also a source of friction between us and the South, and we can position those troops somewhere that better suits our interests. The Japanese won’t like it, but they have had a free lunch for too long. If there are any Den Beste fans out there his post yesterday on this subject was great.
The UN is a big group. Why does the US have to be the peacekeepers there? I say we let China, Japan, India, and whatever other Asian neighbors who ought to be really concerned about nukes in their backyard send troops to the DMZ. Wouldn’t THAT be something? Chinese troops forced to police the border so that the North Koreans don’t try anything. It would be like when the Alabama State Troopers were beating and tear-gassing the voting-rights marchers in Selma one day and then wer required to guard them all the way to Montgomery the next.
Well, the US does have the largest and best equipped military on the planet, bar none. The reason that so few of our NATO allies were involved in Afghanistan (and almost all of them were willing to commit whatever forces we could have asked them for) is that they haven’t done much in the way of upgrading their military since GWI, and many of them were shocked at the kinds of firepower the US was casually bringing to bear upon the opposing forces. So shocked, that many of our allies are seriously considering boosting their military spending.
Shouldn’t do them any good; that is the minimum, and South has so many advantages that the North should need at least 10 to one to win.
Plus, they are super-vulnerable to loss of supplies and ofensive operations due to their lack of adequate gear and training.
No they aren’t. Well, Britain, maybe. Germany is a definite no. France is probably the same.
I agree with the idea of pulling them out. They are not a credible threat, they are more in the way of hostages. They more represent an immediate way for the situation to get way out of hand in a hurry. If there was a conventional spat between North and South Korea, it could be talked down, perhaps. But if North Korea, even accidentally, harms US troops, GeeDubya will reach for the nukes in two seconds flat.
The best word for it is ‘tripwire’. That’s their intended purpose. The thinking has been that if the Americans aren’t there, then North Korea may gamble that it can invade South Korea in a lightning strike and deter the U.S. from intervening. Saddam made that kind of gamble against Kuwait.
But if American forces are there, the only way North Korea can invade South Korea is to go through 37,000 Americans, and that automatically draws the U.S. into the war. So it’s a form of deterrence.
That said, I’m not sure I’d disagree with pulling them out either. The South Koreans have gotten a bit lazy, and the rise in anti-American rhetoric has been disturbing. And besides, the U.S. at this point in time might not WANT to retaliate, now that North Korea has nuclear weapons. I suspect that the new strategic thinking will be to arm South Korea with nukes, let Japan build its own nukes, and then let China and other regional powers worry about the whole mess.
That’s also why the U.S. has resisted diplomatic relations with North Korea. They’re trying to portray the problem as one between North Korea and its neighbors.
Which is way past dumb. We pretend we’re not “talking” or “negotiating” with the NK. But of course we are, even by refusing to. In strictly humanitarian terms, NK is a serious problem, in my estimation, much more serious that Iraq. If kissing thier butt is what is required to save 100,000 lives, I say pucker up, America.
(Only a churlish lefty would point out how it was that this information became available about the time when the Congress was considering the war resolution as regards Iraq, but was held back until a more opportune time arrived. Churlish lefty, c’est moi)
