My latest KT piece is up. A snippet:
In short, the Roh-Bush deal gave Korea increased national pride. In return, the U.S. got greater operational flexibility and several thousand fewer body bags in the event of a conflict. It is trade with which both sides seem happy.
I assume you already about know the deal in question.
(BTW, I already saw one mistake I made that slipped past the editors. I guess my ego can take it if someone points out more.)
13 Comments
Sorry, but the invitation is there!
The sixth [Internet-style] paragraph is missing a full-stop (AmEn: period) at the end.
‘From different nationalities’ should be either ‘from different nations’ or ‘of different nationalities’.
The one you must have been referring to, ’slugging in out’. T and N aren’t even close on the keyboard!
I’m sure Cheong Wa Dae shouldn’t be preceeded by an article, definite or otherwise.
I’d prefer “Cheongwa-dae” m’self…
Anyway, as to content, Andy is right — and this is all as it should be. Roh did everyone a favor on this, it’s the best policy all-round. The US Army *should* step back now, to support role, keep slowly pulling back and pulling out.
I don’t have much worry that this will leave the ROK any more vulnerable to a “Korean War II” tank-led-massive-ground-invasion. Come on, NK’s very last chance to attempt that was the street-chaos of early 1987 (some scenario like depicted in the Clancy-esque novel _Red Phoenix_; and even then they had no chance of final victory). Since then the NK forces have continued to decay while the ROK’s have gotten better. China and Russia have lost all interest in supporting another war; Beijing would most probably seek to actively prevent/preempt it. NK’s nukes are militarily useless for offense.
Korean War II just ain’t gonna happen no-more. US military-stance policy should reflect that reality. That’s what’s happening. Good…
The command transfer was going to happen sooner or later, but IMO Roh didn’t do a good job handling this matter.
Brilliantly put.
If someone writes about the KA alliance, I wish they’d have some background or a little undestanding of alliance behavior.
This was just another boring piece that failed to discuss the realities of the KA alliance.
The lads actually working on these issues will likely have a good chuckle at this article because you can find about 300 nearly identical pieces dating from now to about 1990..
Outdated.. Sorry.
If I am not mistaken, I don’t think the US has given up on the plan to send ground reinforcements to the ROK in the event of a war. OK there’s a possibility that in the future the plan might change, but until then, ROK troops might be ” slugging in out on the outskirts of Euijeongbu” in the first weeks of the war, but in the later stages, US ground forces along with ROKA troops might be slugging it out on the outskirts of Seoul or Suwon or whatever city a battle may be occurring during the later stages of the ground war.
Nobody is ever going to be slugging it out on the outskirts of Euijeongbu; that time has long past. NK tanks won’t have enough gasoline to drive that far, nor would SK forces (supplemented with US airpower) let them get that far even if they did; nor would China let them even start rollin’.
Nobody’s going to be “slugging it out on the outskirts of Seoul or Suwon or whatever city a battle may be occurring during the later stages of the ground war” because there isn’t going to be an earlier stage of a ground war. Jeez guys, i know it’s macho-fun to speculate on such matters to get your adrenaline running, but you video-game-fantasizers ought to stick your heads out the door and take some note of what’s happened in the world in the past two decades…
Maybe I should have said Dongducheon.
I don’t think an NK attack is likely (hence “would” instead of “will”) but to think that there is no such chance is naive at best.
Neville Chamberlain couldn’t have put it better.
Oh, geez. KJI doesn’t have Hitler’s war-machine, just a rusting hungry ghost of what used to be one. And he has no backers — where would the oil needed for this adventure come from, pray tell? Nor does he have conquest-ambitions, just rhetoric of such equally stale as your rightist warnings of tank-brought doom, your mind stuck in cold-war days.
Nor does the Pyeongyang elite display even a hint of suicidal desire; rather quite the opposite. And they thoroughly know, even if you do not, that any large attack against the ROK would be their suicide. Serious people who have talked with them found that THEY have paid attention to the world’s changes since the pal-pal Olympics, even if you have not.
OK, there is never “zero chance” of almost anything — a Republican COULD be America’s next Prez — but this NK-fighting-in-Suwon nightmare has about the same chance of happening as Rusky tanks sweeping across Europe anytime soon…
#5: Care to enlighten us with some of your superior up-to-date analysis? If not, there’s probably a nice steaming cup of STFU waiting to be had somewhere.
#7: All they have to do is make it to the first S-Oil station for a fill up. And does hypothesizing on war make us warmongers?
no, certainly not — neither said nor implied nor intended. That particular hypothesizing on that particular war-scenario is merely out-of-date, is my point.
“Korean War II just ain’t gonna happen no-more. US military-stance policy should reflect that reality. That’s what’s happening. Good.”
Do you read palms too? FYI, the Chinese govt recently stated publicly that it would make a move into NK in the event of political instability. The track record of NK is not encouraging. Given the liklihood of political instability in NK, isn’t it better to continue to benefit from the American military umbrella at a fraction of the cost that it would take for Korea to defend itself?
BTW, if the troops had not been needed and had not contributed so mightily to the nation, its economy, its stability and its development, they would not have been invited to stay. Even Roh with his limited intellect seemed to understand this.
I also agree that the troops should pack up and go. It’s one of the costliest giveaways that the US govt has perpetrated at the expense of its taxpayers, and it has apparently generated little or no demonstrable benefit for the US.