Spectator's Journal/Seoul Long
Bandow, Doug
SPECTATOR'S JOURNAL SEOUL LONG by Doug Bandow Fr he upheavals in Eastern Europe 1 have not been without their impact on the Far East. China is keeping its distance from the USSR despite the...
...The gains would include dropping the military tripwire, eliminating several billion dollars in foreign subsidies, and improving America's competitive position vis-a-vis a powerful trading partner...
...It is an ideal he understands and lives...
...an important advanced military outpost in a region suffused with great power rivalries...
...Separate and hostile states—the Republic of Korea and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea—arose and both superpowers withdrew their forces...
...Internationally the North has lost support owing to its sporadic but spectacular incidents of terrorism...
...Since when is it the duty of the U.S...
...But today's Japanese-U.S...
...continues to treat Korea as if the year were 1953...
...Christmas brought an even more painful blow, the revolution in Rumania, for the late Nicolae Ceausescu was one of president Kim II Sung's closest friends, a fellow Stalinist who had likewise constructed a personality cult and installed his son as heir apparent...
...At the war's close there was nothing to prevent the collapse of the ROK except the presence of American troops...
...One member of the audience innocently asked whether the ROK could take on more responsibility within the present military structure...
...Military disengagement would not mean isolation...
...The superpower shield is a great deal for Seoul...
...China is keeping its distance from the USSR despite the Gorbachev-Deng summit last year...
...Yet the U.S...
...The result forty years ago was a North Korean invasion, American and then Chinese intervention, followed by stalemate and armistice in 1953...
...Please make checks payable to Hillsdale College) For check orders, write: Freedom Library, Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan 49242 Toll tree MasterCard & Visa Orders 800-837-4247 36 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR NOVEMBER 1990...
...Stationing troops around the world to bolster other nations' economies is simply ludicrous, especially when our country suffers from a large federal deficit, serious trade problems, and a slowing economy...
...A popular revolution in 1987 forced the end of Chun Doo Hwan's military dictatorship and the ROK is now learning how to prosper with a fractious democracy...
...T he issue, however, should be what 1 the American people "want and need...
...The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is even more nervous...
...How can anyone seriously suggest that a country with twice the population, eight times the economic strength, and an enormous technological lead over its adversary can't defend itself...
...might wonder why our forces were still needed at all...
...In short, the ROK, so hopelessly dependent on America, would surrender rather than devote any extra effort to protect its freedom...
...Secretary of the Treasury "President George Roche of Hillsdale College has written a work of good sense about America...
...And for another decade the South suffered from political and economic chaos...
...forces in Korea, once thought to be the means of maintaining the peace in thepeninsula, has now become the end...
...with an economy that grew at 12 percent annually from 1986 to 1988, Seoul now has a GNP more than eight times that of its northern neighbor...
...The imploding Soviet economy does not offer the same opportunities for Japan as does the U.S...
...The stationing of U.S...
...presence...
...the U.S...
...In fact, not even Korean and American defense officials seem to think that the ROK is unable to protect itself...
...And President Bush, though planning to withdraw 7,000 soldiers over time, has reaffirmed Reagan Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger's bizarre promise that American troops will remain in Korea "as long as the people want and need that presence...
...Japanis the world's second-ranking economic power: it should do more for its region's defense...
...Similarly, last year the ROK's defense minister wrote an article for the New THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR NOVEMBER 1990 35 York Times complaining that Seoul's spending on defense would have to climb from five to eight percent of GNP if America withdrew its soldiers...
...Were Seoul told it was going to be on its own by the mid-1990s, there is little doubt that it would do what was necessary...
...And for good reason...
...William E. Simon, former U.S...
...John O'Sullivan, Editor, National Review "In an age when colleges and universities are abandoning traditional values, it is refreshing to read a book by a college president that returns to heartland values...
...Even opposition leader Kim Dae Jung is not shouting "America go home...
...More important, the contention is simply wrong...
...troops should be phased out over a set period, say five years, and Washington could sell the South whatever non-nuclear weapons that it wanted...
...Donald J. Devine, former Director, Office of Personnel Management (U.S...
...When Richard Nixon initiated limited troop withdrawals in the early 1970s, South Korea greatly increased its defense expenditures and expanded its armaments industry...
...In any case, bases deep in the heart of enemy territory are the hardest to hold in wartime...
...So long as the U.S...
...But is that really a reason for America to maintain its multi-billion dollar defense subsidy of the ROK...
...would simply stop guaranteeing the security of a nation that has graduated from the American defense safety net...
...But no one in the South, other than a few befuddled leftist students—who don't understand how the North's Kim Il Sung would respond the first time they tried to demonstrate against him—would like to see the "Great Leader" reign over all of Korea...
...At the November conference a Pentagon representative dutifully defended the status quo against congressional proposals to bring home anywhere between 10,000 and 40,000 soldiers...
...It would be logical for the South's growing capabilities to cause Washington to begin refashioning its defense commitment...
...While the ROK was surging ahead economically, the North was stagnating...
...Ties between Moscow and Tokyo seem destined to warm, but animosities between the two nations go back to the Russo-Japanese War of 1905...
...This argument is obviously an insult to a nation that fought a bloody three-year war to maintain its independence and which has overcome enormous economic and political challenges during the last forty years...
...A member of South Korea's ruling party responded that no such increase was possible: "We have needs in health and education that must be met...
...He is the author, most recently, of The Politics of Plunder: Misgovernment in Washington (Transaction Publishers...
...Some Americans see a different danger—an American pullout disillusioning the Japanese, pushing them toward the USSR...
...In 1987, Seoul'sdefense minister said his nation would achieve military parity with the North within two to three years...
...Civil Service) FREE SHIPPING...
...The U.S...
...As the South has grown, the balance on the peninsula has shifted dramatically against Pyongyang...
...The United States fell into its role in Korea at the end of World War II, when it divided the peninsula, since 1910 a colony of Japan, with the USSR...
...Presidents and vice presidents troop from capital to capital to declare the permanence of the American commitment...
...Of course, Koreans tend not to be very enthusiastic about this argument, since they don't like advertising themselves as a potential target in a new world war...
...Iistime for Washington to sit down with Seoul and work out a gradual withdrawal program in consultation with America's allies in the region...
...A representative of the Korean Institute for Defense Analyses exclaimed that "we'd have to spend more...
...Bad enough for that socialist paradise was Hungary's decision early in 1989 to break ranks with other Communist states and recognize the Republic of Korea (ROK...
...For example, at a conference organized by the U.S.-Korean Security Council in Seoul last November, one American panelist had the temerity to suggest that Seoul hike its spending on military research and deDoug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a former special assistant to President Reagan...
...troops in Korea...
...Moreover, Japan could expand its military capability through the purchase of such defensive weapons as frigates and interceptors, which would help contain Communist power without threatening its nervous neighbors, as well as help underwrite the military efforts of other nations, such as the ROK...
...South Korea successfully competes in international computer, auto, and construction markets, while the DPRK has welshed on nearly $800 million in foreign debt—not much, but enough to preclude further credit—and apparently faces domestic famine...
...Which is undoubtedly true...
...Washington policy-makers must now learn to base their decisions on the needs of their people, not the convenience of our overseas allies...
...Moscow armed its client with heavy weapons while Washington stood by...
...And the 43,000 soldiers in South Korea threaten no vital Soviet assets...
...Not surprisingly, the two occupiers couldn't agree on a means of reunifying the two zones...
...should also work diplomatically to encourage greater regional security cooperation between South Korea, Japan, and such ASEAN countries as the Philippines...
...He proposes reducing state power and increasing individual, community and voluntary responsibility for citizenship...
...velopment...
...officials apparently think so...
...But in the 1960s the economy took off and since then no other country has grown faster...
...The greatest threat to U.S.-Japanese ties is protectionism, not a military withdrawal from Korea...
...In his latest book, George Roche has written a survivalist's guide to the follies of 1990...
...provides a defense umbrella, the opposition can push for military cuts...
...borrows from Japan to defend Japan, is as outdated as Washington's defense of Korea...
...In short, if the Koreans did more, people in the U.S...
...Gorbachev met with ROK president Roh Tae Woo in July, and now the Soviet Union, a North Korean ally for more than forty years, appears ready, after expanding economic ties with Seoul, to recognize the South officially...
...As for potential damage to the Korean economy, so what...
...If you like free enterprise, the family, Judeo-Christian values, the liberal arts, and the sanctity of the individual over the collective, you will like this book by George Roche...
...commander, General William Livsey, predicted the ROK would achieve a military edge by the 1990s...
...troops to stay...
...Some 43,000 troops provide a tripwire that could involve America in a new war...
...when I suggested bringing home America's troops...
...The twin positions of South Korea and Japan help restrict Soviet naval access to the Pacific, but the U.S...
...ground, naval, and air units throughout the Pacific stand ready to intervene should war break out...
...In fact, there are now more U.S...
...New from Hillsdale College's Freedom Library – ONE by ONE Preserving Values and Freedom in Heartland America by Hillsdale College President George Roche Order now for only $7.95 paper, $12.95 hardcover (Michigan residents, add 4% sales tax) "Here are common sense and common decency–but addressed with uncommon style and unfamiliar arguments...
...Yes, the official replied, but "it would call into question the presence of U.S...
...That conservatives would treat a foreign military presence as an end in itself shows the corrupting influence of Wilsonian internationalism...
...William Taylor and Michael Mazarr of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, for instance, contend that "the assertive opposition in the National Assembly is likely to cut defense spending" and sharp increases in such spending "would deeply wound the ROK economy...
...Before that the U.S...
...Then there's the notion that Korea offers the U.S...
...M any U.S...
...Seoul, in contrast, now recognized by most of the East European states, trades more with China than does the North...
...He argues that we have been successful because we have been good–in following nature's God and His law, rather than the promise of peace on earth through government planning...
...The majority of people are solidly anti-Communist, and many of them remember the depredations of the DPRK when it overran most of their country in 1950...
...market, which remains the largest in the world...
...Some analysts seem to fear that Seoul simply won't do so...
...Polls clearly show that South Koreans would like the U.S...
...The U.S...
...Analysts on both sides of the Pacific desperately seek new justifications for maintaining the status quo...
...soldiers in Korea than there were when Ronald Reagan took office...
...D efenders of the status quo have come up with several other justifications for a continued U.S...
...relationship, wherein the U.S...
...And in August 1989 the current commander, General Louis Menetry, said that with continuation of Korea's military modernization program, "there should be stability on the peninsula without the United States being part of the equation in the mid-1990s...
...The Soviet Union is downsizing its presence at Cam Ranh Bay, and Vietnam is looking to the West for aid...
...The South Korean establishment naturally exhibits no interest in reducing America's burden...
...to spend billions of dollars, damaging its own economy, to relieve allies of the burden of defending themselves...
...fleet could operate in the region even if no American soldiers were stationed on the peninsula...
...Given Korea's proximity to Japan, Koreans worry that an American pullout would encourage Japanese rearmament...
...Such an increase is obviously manageable for one of the world's most vibrant economies...
Vol. 23 • November 1990 • No. 11
