Let me play the devil’s advocate here:

As far as the ROK military goes, right now they are the true first line of defense for Korea, as they should be. The ROK Army boasts 690,000 troops and modern Korean versions of the M1 (K1A1 main battle tank), BFV (K200 Korean Infantry Fighting Vehicle), M109 Howitzers (K-9 Thunder) and some good old M198 Howitzers. In contrast, 2nd ID is a shadow of what it was in the 80’s and 90’s, and is really a token force to show our commitment on the Korean peninsula and NE Asia in general. I think the key to that success is the 57 year ROK-US relationship. It took 57 years to get the ROK where it is now both as a dynamic democracy and a robust economy that ranks 11 th or 12th in the world consecutively in the dawn of the 21st century. And that’s the issue that lies with Iraq and Afghanistan. Are we willing to stay the long haul in places the British, Russians (Imperial and Soviet versions), Turks (Ottomans) and Mongols could not or would not stay?

Back to the Korea question. Withdrawing ground forces totally from Korea has its strategic drawbacks. First off, USFK provides great stability in NE Asia. Next, if we withdrew ground forces from Korea, Japan then, would be the only country in the region to have US Forces; and that could be a point of contention with China, Russia or anyone else with interests counter to US policy. And lastly since the US Army is still in the infancy stages of “transformation,” we’ll have to rely on sea transport of any major deployment to the ROK for wartime operations. Staying in Korea provides the warm bed that us logisticians need for those RSOI missions.

Unification on the Korean peninsula is the war game scenario that USFK must get right. There’s no “soft landing” in the near future, and believe it or not, some think that bad guy Kim, Jong-Il is actually a stabilizer in the region!! South Koreans looked at what toll it took on West Germany to reunite with East Germany, crunched the numbers, and saw the truth—even with the strong economy, unification would bring South Korea to its knees. That’s the rub on the former Presidents Kim Dae-Jung’s “Sunshine Policy” and Roh, Moo-Hyun’s “Peace and Prosperity” policy. They need to wean the north off life support before anything bad happens. The US and Japan are the biggest aid contributors to north Korea right after South Korea. So looking on the outside in, we like the status quo just as much as everyone else. If the unthinkable happens, and collapse or coup takes place in north Korea, USFK provides stability in the region by showing South Korea that we still have viable interest in NE Asia, and also counterbalances China and Japan. China likes its buffer zone that north Korea provides. The Chinese even have a “border dispute” with the Koreas about the area around north Korea. Under this dispute, China could claim north Korea as a part of China just as they did with Tibet. This issue is very real for South Korea, and even came up during a meeting in 2006 with South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. Others think that once we leave, China will reassume its big brother role with South Korea, and Japan will get worried, and want to join the nuke club that China and a unified Korea would then belong to in NE Asia. That’s an arms race we really don’t need.

Tim,

I’m not advocating full withdrawal but if the Koreans will not allow the move of 2ID then it is time to pull them out and then rotate Strykers on the peninsula to train with the ROK Army and keep a ground presence on the peninsula.

In response to that I say:

GIKorea,

I never said that you were for complete pullout, I said those that are for complete pullout. Anyway, I think your idea has lots of merit and I know that your motivation behind this is to get soldiers better living conditions.

However, having said that, I believe one of the other commentors here made a good point that it will take a major crisis to overcome the status quo. Both U.S. and ROK governments are completely comfortable with having U.S. troops on the peninsula and I don’t believe that will change significantly anytime soon.

Tim in Angeles sendzzzzzzzzzzz

But, change won’t happen. The status quo is too powerful - just within the US administration(s) itself.

The Vietnam War brought about a major downsizing but Nixon did not fullfill the pull out of all troops. Carter thought his authority as commander and chief was enough to get it done and got rudely awakened to the power of the status quo. The end of the Cold War got talks going again but toward nothing. Then 9/11, a war on two main fronts, and Donald Rumsfeld got our hopes up….

….but it wasn’t enough.

Things won’t change until they must and there is nothing on the horizen that suggests that will happen anytime in the foreseeable future.

It’s not in America’s interest to have the 2ID up so close. It’s just barely in America’s interest to have them halfway down the peninsula. But, somehow we’ve allowed them to gum up the works to the point where ROK is in the driver’s seat on this matter. How’d that happen?

Sadly, a General who was standing up for U.S. national interests is out for…standing up for American interests. It might be understandable if, say, ROK was a fullfledged partner in Iraq and Afghanistan, contributing forces beyond medical and construction, but they are not.

They’ve made quite clear that they will NOT help out the U.S. on Iraq any further, even as they demand that the U.S. subordinate it’s basing plans in Korea to buttress their own economic and political goals. It’s really amazing how we let these situations develop — we sit there like a giant in a stupor as busy little men throw ropes and tie our hands and feet to the ground.

2ID shouldn’t be sacrificed for relations with this modern, 1st world, rich, bustling country, just in case they need to be saved a second time. The 58,000 U.S. dead given in the Korean War was quite sufficient, thank you.

Would they want to talk about contributing larger numbers of true combat troops to Iraq or Afghanistan, as long as 2ID is holding up the walls at their home?