Furthermore, I agree that the US forces should be a more flexible force, able to be shifted or utilized where they are needed to in the region. The utility of US troops stationed on the Korean peninsula should not be predicated on the South Korean political climate. They are here to act as a mutual deterrent against aggression towards South Korea presumably by the North. As long as this role is not neglected, the US should have complete flexibility to complete other missions as the need arises.

As for the guy that was hit with the beer bottle, that was an unfortunate event. Like many have stated, if it happened between Koreans, there would have been nothing to report but because it involved USFK personnel it became news. I suppose it could have been blown much further out of proportion and I am glad that it was not. It often seems like the .05% of the population that are the real A-holes causing all the problems are responsible for the rules laws that make everyone else?€™s lives so difficult.

The headline for the segment was something like “This is Humanitarian Assistance?” They started off with a clip of an A-10 just after take off, then they looped the same footage — a large US (I think medical) cargo helicopter with that big net thingy hanging under it. It was flying low over a school to gently lay the load of badly needed supplies onto the dirt soccer field. In between runs of the clip, they did interviews with different locals complaining about the “noise pollution” and wondering how the US military could expect the children to be able to concentrate with all that going on over their head…..

My unsarcastic apologies for assuming you were trolling.

Not a problem. Perhaps I should have made myself more clear on such a volatile issue.

I would rather see the forces we have in there now or perhaps what we plan to stop at after the current round of downsizing is completed.

I am not a military strategist. I do not know how many US forces need to be in Korea to offer an effective fighting force in the first phases of a defense against a North Korean invasion, but I do not want to see the forces cut back to a token show.

I’ve said this before —- I do not want to see the trip wire remain in effect but with just a handful of US forces in Korea.

If we are going to cut back to a token force, remove all of USFK assets from Korea — and promise some air and sea support if an invasion comes.

South Korea has the resources to provide an adequate deterent on the ground if it takes measures to build it. It has the population size, population health, wealth, and industry to do it. They don’t need our boots on the ground (any US bases) to defend themselves.

In short, what I mean to say is, what I would hate to see is bascially a fundamental continuation of the US-SK security alliance minus the USFK muscle on the ground. Do not pull another Truman. Do not take out any real US forces of size in Korea but maintain the promise that if war comes, we’ll pump tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands back in.

If we are going to change the US-SK alliance, change it fundamentally.

As to “Methinks you need to drink some more jingoistic, depleted uranium-tipped Kool Aid Paul.”

What are you talking about????

I really don’t have much of a clue???

My education and my experience both tell me that the presence of the US in South Korea and in Japan (including Okinawa) is a major wet blanket to international tensions that in the past have easily boiled over into war. The United States and the US alone is in that unique position, and its continued presence here serves everyone’s interests, not least of which is the US’s own economic, political, and social interests. But even if it should not be eliminated, that presence can be gradually reduced and there is no real reason why parts of it shouldn’t be transformed into a more mobile force to deal with the new challenges we face.

I know I’m not going to convince you, Kushibo, but I’ll say it again for anyone else who might be interested. I’m not advocating isolationism and I disagree with your labeling of my posture as such.

I said withdrawl of “ground forces”, not airbases (though in the case of ROK I would remove the vast majority of all US personnel). US can support the alliance from offshore and from Japan immediately with air and sea power in the event of an actual attack, as requested by the ROK.

Minimal US forward bases for wartime use, in the southern part of ROK can be maintained using contractors and a few supervisory personnel for rapid reinforcement from elsewhere in the Pacific and/or CONUS, using airlift. Or the mission can be given to USMC as Lirelou advocated.

I imagine in 10 more years we’ll see the new US bases further south becoming such “contingency” ones(assuming the situation vs a vs the North remains essentially unchanged).

I don’t think DPRK will ever be able to mount a full scale invasion of the South unless the PRC supported such an invasion logistically (ie with petroleum products); and I can’t see that happening in this modern era of expanding trade relationships. Maybe if we’re gone, the ROK and PRC can get on with dealing the DPRK more fully into this economic relationship; that will be the “engagement” that so many on these blogs want to see, and they’ve got a point. It’s fine with me, as long as the USFK are out of the country.

ROK is fully capable of defending itself on the ground; the sooner it sees that this is becoming an inevitable choice for them, the better it will be for the overall health of the alliance.

It is time our global force posture reflected the end of the Cold War.

Part of that is recognizing too that the forces of cohesion with allies as also gone out the window with the end of the global communist threat.

I know much less about NATO than I do about the US-SK alliance, but I would like to see fundamental death nails put in both their coffins — until someone can convince me otherwise.

As for the nature of the average recruit, I offer this limited thought —- I didn’t hang around with US soldiers much in Korea or groups of expats of any stripe for that matter, but what I saw and what I heard about