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Unlike Jing, of course. You gotta love the wise Chinese strategist coming down from his perch to lecture the unschooled American novice.

Jing: International politics is even more complicated than simple cost/risk analyses and involves more than Manichaen calculations despite what he would wish to think.

The Manichaean approach is the one taken by the Chinese and the Koreans - America bad, the rest of the world good. (Simplistic? Sounds like a playground putdown of people with whom Jing doesn’t agree - seems a lot more sophisticated than merely saying stupid without actually adding to the debate). They have their own national myths to justify, and they are driven by these national myths to do things that are at variance with America’s interests.

Zdunk posed some interesting food for thought as to U.S. grand strategy in East Asia. Much greater minds than I have suggested a U.S. withdrawal from S. Korea would virtually signify a U.S. abandonment of Japan. However, there is another school of thought here, and it argues that by keeping Japan and S. Korea virtual dependencies of the U.S., you run the risk of actually weekening alliance strength. It’s no secret that both Japan and S. Korea have based their security policy on depending on the U.S., and their defense expenditures per GNP reflect this. Of course, this gives the U.S. an unusual amount of bilateral leverage on countries of their size, but the strategic trade-off in terms of total alliance strength is too great, in my opinion. The other issue, and I think this is the most important one, is that East Asia is a region with some of the world’s largest economies and, accordingly, some of the world’s largest defense budgets. Zbigniew Brzezinski pointed out once that you really have to look at the U.S. position in East Asia and wonder how long 100,000 U.S. troops and the 7th Fleet are going to be able to maintain the balance of power in a region as dynamic as this one. For now, it should be able to do so, but not much longer unless it wants to commit an ever growing amount of resources to the region to keep up with the Jones’. U.S. policy in East Asia has always been based on the premise of not allowing any one power to dominate the region. The Pacific War was fought to defend this principle, and U.S. commitments during the Cold War were also based on this strategy. Now, with the possible exception of China, I don’t see any hegemonic threats in the region, and even with the potential China threat, Japan, Korea, Russia and India are large enough powers that they could balance China out IF Beijing got a little greedy. In that sense, there is little need to perpetuate a large, expensive and one could argue ultimately futile (considering the growth of regional economies and the drain such a commitment would entail on the U.S. economy, from which our power really originates) presence when there are a lot more subtle and cost effective ways to balance the power structure in the region. Anyway, I don’t think anyone would seriously consider “abandoning” S. Korea and Japan, but what does deserve consideration is a re-arrangement in burden sharing within those alliances that ultimately would result in stronger and healthier relationships.

Kimbob — Undoubtably, there are some real differences in how to handle North Korea, and you’re right, of course, in that both sides are simply following what they consider to be their best interests in the matter. Living in Seoul, I fully understand why South Korean leaders might be hesitent to back plans to hit North Korea over a nuclear program they see more as a threat to the United States than to them, although I also understand how many Americans might see this as something of a betrayal, given how South Korea has enjoyed protection under the U.S. nuclear umbrella for the last half century, an umbrella that was premised on the assumption that the U.S. would be willing to make its own cities targets of Soviet nuclear warheads to defend South Korea. Betrayal, loyalty, and other emotions ultimately get tossed aside when nations make hard choices, however, so I’m not going to make too much of this point. What is a concern, however, are not simply disagreements over NK, but over general strategy, or perhaps it would be best to say, the lack of a general strategy on both sides. Alliances last only as long as they are useful, and one has to wonder if both sides see their long-term interests as necessarily coinciding. Over North Korea, there is general agreement, and it is the issue of North Korea that has kept both sides together for such a long time. Even when the two sides have participated jointly in out-of-theater activity, such as Vietnam and Iraq, the issue of North Korea was always a prime factor in the decision-making process. Once the North Korean threat is gone, what then do you base the alliance on? Obviously, this was something NATO faced once the Soviet threat vanished, and people are just now asking the same questions here. Those questions have not been fully answered, but to be fair, the debate has only just begun. Anyway, I wrote an essay on this back in April that I wish to link here, as I think it does a fairly decent job of some of the issues involved in Korea’s future strategic planning, especially involving the U.S.

http://blog.marmot.cc/archives.....-alliance/

Says one.

“ROK is now an enemy of America”

says the other.

This after what? After some poll says that some 20% of South Koreans (in which people from Cholla province - long known to be anti-establishment took the lion’s share of that 20 percent) think they should ally with North Korea. Granted, I’m not proud that that many are talking foolishness, but that still leaves 80% out in the poll somehwere. And knowing wildly swinging Korean public moods that swing back and forths, depending on Korean media news reports of the days (and news reports that the US is contemplating early strikes against North Korea which may lead to millions of dead Koreans from both sides of the borders doesn’t help), I don’t buy that S.Koreans think of the US as an enemy so therefore S.Korea is an enemy.

What we have here is a fundalmental differences between South Korea and United States on how to deal with North Korea. South Korea is going after their own interests - namely slow, gradual peaceful reunification with North Korea and preventing another devestating war in Korean peninsula. The United States is also going after its own interests - namely eliminating the nuclear proliferation that may someday lead to a terrorist attack on the United States. These divergent national interests are what’s dividing the two nations. Of course we’ve all seen a lot of crap coming out of the mouths of the public in Korea. But now a days, I see that a lot of the crap is coming out of the mouths of the angry white men expats in Korea and few but growing Anti-Koreans in the United States. I guess it’s what’s called reactionary response.

OF course the biggest loss will be suffered by South Koreans if the US suddenly decides to treat South Korea as an enemy. But why does the US want to make its list of enemies grow even further? Because of some poll? Because of some anti-US rallies? Because of a foreign policy disagreement on North Korea? Maybe Bush should have said in his speech, “if you are not with us and if you don’t agree with everything with us then you are our enemy”. If this blog is a representative of the US administration, then god help us all in the world.

somebody on this board wrote japan needed to be made into a warship.
really? for whose benefit? who would attack japan? china?
why would china attack japan? north korea? end of their regime. south korea?
pooo-leeeez. russia? some 40% of russians can’t even afford to buy toothpaste.
japan needs to be a warship for american policies and interests. don’t be surprised
if the japanese wake up one day and realize this. then the japanese will become
enemies too.

asian folk on this board should take note on how these expats always
have you at war killing one another when they’re not around. monumental
arrogance.

i have never written to this neff neither as nulji, shin,
or my real name. period.

as for my english, i think it’s obvious i speak english naturally.
if you want to tell me i make grammar errors, fine. so do many other english
speakers. so, sue me. and paul, i’ve already discussed the fact i’m american.
sorry you don’t like that.