Paul: I don’t actually like John Kerry very much, but I think many people would agree with what he said about the soldiers, although it was politically unwise for him to have said so.

Michael: I haven’t read his essay, but I get the impression that you’re believing in imaginary numbers that don’t make sense.

S.K. is actually getting far more than the direct military spending you belittle, and has been for years: “The subsidy provided by the U.S. presence enables South Koreans to postpone hard choices concerning how fast, and how far, to move toward reunification, and thus it postpones hard choices between civilian and military budgetary priorities.”

You can deny this all you want, but it’s true.

He later said that was a “botched joke”. Do you believe everything Senator Kerry says, or do you just choose to pretend to believe those of his utterances that you find politically convenient?

Check out the picture at this link
http://www.freerepublic.com/fo.....1163/posts.
Maybe we can get some of the “otherwise unemployable” American troops in the ROK to “do up” a similar sign for Senator Kerry, and get their picture posted on the internet.

And then he’ll take up the cause of American troop withdrawal from ROK with equal alacrity. Every little bit helps.

2) “….Not only that, if American troops are not in Korea, Korea would be forced to rely on nuclear weapons for its defence. Would that be in America’s interest?”

I thought that nowadays “Korea is one”. Which means that “Korea” already has nuclear weapons, no?

I agree it’s not currently in America’s interest for Korea to have them, but my solution for this is to remove America’s ground forces from the southern portion of “one Korea” as soon as possible. This should significantly reduce the likelihood that “Korean” nuclear weapons will ever need to be used; once the “unemployable Americans” are gone from the peninsula, Koreans presumably won’t need their nukes anymore and can set the world an example by dismantling them.

I also think that, by having American troops in Korea, American government is providing jobs to many Americans who are otherwise unemployable back home in America because of their limited skills in other areas, as John Kerry pointed out recently.

I was led to believe that was what the Korean hagwon industry was for.

Not only that, if American troops are not in Korea, Korea would be forced to rely on nuclear weapons for its defence. Would that be in America’s interest?

I don’t see why not.

I also think that, by having American troops in Korea, American government is providing jobs to many Americans who are otherwise unemployable back home in America because of their limited skills in other areas, as John Kerry pointed out recently.

Not only that, if American troops are not in Korea, Korea would be forced to rely on nuclear weapons for its defence. Would that be in America’s interest?

“In addition to the direct costs of its forces in Korea, averaging $2 billion per year, the United States spends more than $40 billion annually to maintain the overall U.S. defense posture in East Asia and the western Pacific on which its capability to intervene in Korea depends.”

http://www.nautilus.org/fora/s.....rison.html

So the U.S. on the aggregate spends far more than $30 billion a year on S.K. if you factor in the neccessary support structure that’s not all on the peninsula.

Harrison’s essay is interesting to read, even if it has some implausible conclusions.

OTOH, if the US Dept of Defense effort on behalf of the land and air defense of the terriitory of the Republic of Korea was a purely “commercial operation” (ie a mercenary effort) — the enormous development and acquisition cost for that portion of expensive US weapons systems present in the ROK would have to be “amortized”, to at least “break even” (we’ll disregard any notion of a “profit”, as American voters don’t put their sons in uniform to be mercenaries). It’s not wholly unprecedented to see it this way — do any of you know that this is approximately the way that the cost of the US military advisory effort in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is computed? (I said “advisory”, not the presence of US combat forces, which btw have now all been withdrawn from KSA).

From the day a US advisor arrives until the day he leaves, the US treasury is reimbursed by the Saudi Ministry of Finance dollar for dollar for his salary. Cost of housing, equipment, a dedicated SUV for both private and “field” usage — all of it comes out of the KSA budget. If this precedent was followed for all US force in the ROK, the cost burden upon the taxpayers of the ROK would seem to me to be potentially enormous, though I’m not a smart enough economist/accountant to do a notional computation.

Of course, this assumes the taxpayers of the ROK would chose to pay such a price, a proposition which seems unlikely. More likely, absent any long-term US military presence (for example, the Chinese “volunteers” left the DPRK in 1958, what if the US forces had all left the ROK a year or two after that) — the current ROK defense posture vs a vs the North would likely be a “low cost” force, more a “mirror image” of what the North currently fields. Ie a lot more manpower (and a much more substantial conscription effort, both in numbers and in length of service). Of course in this case the ROK taxpayers wouldn’t have to pay for lot of sophisticated weapons systems — ones which (it seems to me) they are currently “getting the benefit of” basically for free.

So it really comes down to what “non-economic” view you choose to take of the matter, from where ever you sit on this planet. Just how much is it worth to ROK voters to save the time (of their sons on active service), the worry, and the strain, in order to have these US weapons systems and troops on duty 24/7, year after year, to guard them against what can now be credibly regarded as an internal dispute of the Korean people?

Not to mention the US forces elsewhere in the Pacific and back in CONUS, ready “on call” to reinforce Korean defense — in a day, a week, a month, or even after a year or more of fighting (that is, if you think the US voter/taxpayer would tolerate another lengthy reprise of a “non-nuclear” Korean war. I don’t think that’s going to happen; still it’s not unprecedented, and therefore not impossible, wouldn’t you say?)

I think it’s more likely to be $3billion. My understading is that there are around 30,000 American troops statlioned in Korea. If the average salary is $50,000, then total salary bill would be around $1.5billion. And there would be other expenses, but the main one is probably wear and tear of weapons, which is unlikely to be in multiple billion dollars.

http://rapidrecon.threatswatch.....n-ship-de/

Look at Asia now–even Vietnam is starting to warm to the idea of a US military presence in the region to offset China, the self-appointed leader of Asia. Only the dumbasses in the Blue House are pushing away the US.