This was true in the distant past, but as of today South Korea has one of the largest militaries on the planet at nearly 700,000 standing and some five million in reserve. They also have an advanced airforce and a burgeoning navy. Sure, if the U.S. military came in to help that would be a nice addition but come on. If SK hasn’t “stood up” then no one will or can.
By what measures?
I know, right? It’s almost as if there’s some sort of well off political class which enjoys flexing American muscle abroad. It’s almost as if our entire system has been designed top to bottom for this purpose and that this has been going on for over one hundred yea–er, OK, OK, I’ll relent. You win this round, Atrios! We just gotta switch out a couple people here and there at some major newspapers and media institutions and bam, insta-sanity from our Democratic saviors who are, after all, really Dennis Kucinich at heart.
Actually RTFirefly I do, of course, agree that they should be called out, all the time. There are useful sites for this, too, as I’m sure you well know. But what will really cook your acorns is when you go back to previous eras and compare and contrast. Unlike yours truly, didn’t you have the advantage of actually living through Vietnam? Or being aware of your surroundings in the 80s?
They hired him so he could write op-eds talking about how we should stay in Iraq and how anyone wanting to leave is a pussy. For how long shall we stay? Forever and ever, amen. Or until we have to move over to Iran, you understand. Why the confusion?
Ah, you see, I was confused; when referred to the U.S. guaranteeing security for SK, and then said that the “same can be said for Germany and Japan”, I assumed you were referring equally to current events.
But I would tend to agree with you amended terms; yes, during the occupation of Germany and Japan, the German and Japanese forces may indeed be described as having not “stood up”. Do you think otherwise? And what portion of SK internal security is handled by the U.S. forces?
To be fair to the imperialists looking for easy analogies, Japan, Germany and (no one ever remembers…) Italy are very unusual cases. It’s a rare situation to just waltz in, conquer, and have things go so smoothly. What’s more common are bloody, decades long guerrilla wars. And there are lots of those throughout history, especially in the last hundred years or so. By these standards, Iraq is shaping up fairly well.
I’m not looking for easy answers - but I think the OP is looking for easy rhetorical points to damn current efforts with.
“Standing up” doesn’t happen quite as quickly as when he gets out of a chair - even considering how slowly he does so.
By what measure do we determine if a country has done so? If we say fully providing for their own defense, we’d have to disqualify lots of countries for which we provide a significant amount of help in this area. Indeed, we’d likely have to disqualify us, as a not insignificant portion of our defense is provided by our alliance structure.
So let’s talk about this issue in a more intelligent way. If 5,000 troops (to choose a number for purposes of debate) were to remain in Iraq for the next fifty years, I doubt there would be much debate from either political party about it. We have sustained far larger troop commitments in other countries over the years with nary a peep.
And yet, 4 1/2 years later, they haven’t even started to stand up.
Not so. We don’t rely on any of our allies to defend our borders. We have treaties in the case of emergencies, but not for day-to-day activities. Korea has not sufficiently “stood up”-- if you want to use that analogy.
I think it depends on what they’re doing, and how many are getting killed. That’s what the “peep” is about. And if we were down to 5,000 in a year and half (7 years after the regime was toppled), then I think we’d all dance with joy.
Or we could take the standards of the OP, one of which is providing fully for their own defence, the other providing fully for their internal defense. I would have little problem saying a nation has “stood up” if they still rely on treaties or even bases inside their country, which as you correctly point out they do. But internal defense? You (and indeed other countries as a whole) generally do not provide any such help in this area, as I understand it. I would probably in fact highlight “being able to control one’s own internal security” as an excellent criteria for “having stood up”.
As for the 5000 troops, you seem to be overlooking that the 5000 troops (or whatever the correct amount) currently in Germany, for example, are not expected to be shot at or shoot at. I think you might find that potentially having those troops *in combat * to be a pretty different thing, and such embedding of troops in combat in history I would characterise as having considerable peeps.
I heard a retired general on the radio sounding pretty confident that by 2018 (after, presumably, a lot more casualties and surely at least a trillion dollars spent), we’ll be almost fully withdrawn because Iraq will have a stable government, able to secure its borders and act as a military buffer against Iran. Maybe I’m stupid, but I thought, “Isn’t that what it was five years ago, before we invaded? Could have saved a lot of trouble.”
Of course, the assumption is that Iraq will have a pro-Western democracy – but I don’t see anything to guarantee that it’ll end up any more pro-Western than Hussein was.
Which is really entirely beside the point, because U.S. troops in South Korea are not there to protect the South Korean government from South Koreans. U.S. troops in Germany and Japan are not fighting the Germans and the Japanese. The comparison is preposterous; U.S. presence in those countries was, in the long run, as much about the U.S. having troops in a better position to fight its enemies (the Soviets, mostly, but also North Korea) as it was about protecting itself. Bases in Germany served American interests, as America defined them, as much as they did German.
Agreed, and US troops in South Korea aren’t there just to provide security to South Koreans, they’re also there to shake a fist across the water at China. A big, booming, dictatorial country who we don’t really get along with, and you expect us not to have military bases in the region? This is completely analogous to US bases in Germany after WWII- yes, we’re securing Germany, but we’re also threatening the Soviets.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Feb. 7, 2003: “It is unknowable how long that conflict [the war in Iraq] will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.”
Part one is that an invasion of any of the three nations by their respective enemies would result in American casualties , thus you are at war with America.
Part two is to make sure that as far as Germany and Japan are concerned , but mostly Germany , is that they never again decide to launch another world tour.
One thing that strikes me about the 2018 time frame , is that the average age of an Iraqi captain now, who serves with Americans directly or has dealt with the Army or Marines on a operational basis will most likely have made it to General rank in the Iraqi army , thus the seeded army will have had a very American bias, alot like the Iranian forces post 70’s.
I’ve been saying all along that this thing would take 15-20 years minimum, it’s as obvious as the nose on your face to anyone who has studied even a little bit of history. The amazing thing to me is that everyone is so surprised. You actually believed that it was a temporary thing??? You believed politicians??? Those who ignore the lessons of history…
Precisely. And we didn’t want them to stand up until we were good and ready for them to stand up. To add to what you said, having a lot of troops stationed in Germany and familiar with the territory was probably considered useful.
I suspect it is more that by 2018 all decision makers will be retired and/or dead, and will never have to figure out how to make a working country without a US presence.
I remember we had some rather vociferous debates before and around the time of the invasion.
But I don’t remember your saying anything like this at that time.
You might have done so, and I might just have missed it. I’d be interested in a link.
At any rate, few war opponents are surprised.
It’s the Administration and its allies who, until fairly late in the game, downplayed the difficulties during the runup, and portrayed each new advance - Saddam’s capture, the provisional government, purple fingers, yada yada yada - as major progress towards the completion of our mission.
There have been many threads here about those claims, and I’m sure you must’ve joined us sometime in throwing cold water on them.
I just don’t remember. I’m relying on you to refresh my recollection.
You know how long we were in the Philippines? Haiti? Nicaragua? Each of those countries we left them better than we found it… until right after we left and everything went to shit again. Except the Philippines, they’re one of the more stable and democratic Asian nations and we were there for around fifty years. We’ll probably be in Iraq for a good long while. While I’m sure we all have certain -ahem- passionate feelings towards the people who may have claimed otherwise (ahem), staying there is not necessarily such a bad thing. It doesn’t mean we’ll be in total conflict until then -unless we start knocking next door and down the street- could be soon* most of our troops can start becoming the peacekeeper types they should have been able to be years ago. We re-published and updated the Small Wars Manual so we’re on the right track. Guerrilla conflicts are actually easy to squash, they’re not some unbeatable mess for everyone but the guerrilla, they fail all the time. I think we can get this one to fail too, because if we don’t we’re screwed. “You break it you buy it” as Mr. Powell said.
*ish.