north korea: 1,190,000 active personnel
south korea: 625,000 active personnel
us forces on Korean peninsula: 23,468 personnel
quite the occupation!
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My point is that the Trump administration does not have any representative who is in regular contact with the South Korean government and its President in these matters. Therefore, our government is largely blind to the political situation there. It’s the job of the civilian government to exhaust all possible avenues to avert a military conflict not only for the civilians they represent but also for the military personnel who are not specialized nor tasked with the processes of diplomacy. To debate the finer details of military deployments or whether they’re justified is a deflection from my point as stated.
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here’s the basic problem.
Both sides publicly believe that the ultimate goal of the other side is to restart the Korean war and finish the job.
A sizable number of South Koreans believe that the North Koreans believe that splitting the US-Korean alliance will give them a military advantage in the coming conflict.
The reason that some US/RoK war plans for the Korean War include a counter attack into the North is that Seoul is not in a defensible position…
As for the wargames-- they have a certain deterrent value, a certain propagandistic value, and a certain military value.
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Bear in mind, that both Koreas essentially “kiddie tabled” the US out of the negotiations. Trump being considered to phuqing stupid and dangerous to be allowed to be taken seriously here. Added to that a non-existent ambassador to South Korea
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Not really. If it were up to South Korea, they would just build a giant wall and ignore North Korea’s existence forever.
North Korea wants the threat of war in order to extort cash from its neighbors. An actual war would destroy the regime entirely. But the threat of war is always useful. Plus it would lead to the destruction of Seoul which the South Koreans don’t want either.
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This is what happens when you have a president too lazy and incompetent to appoint an ambassador to an important ally.
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Yes, you can still have your big stick but the key problem here is that we’re not talking to the South Koreans. That’s my point here. The US military can’t do the job of the State Department. That’s Tillerson and company’s job. If we don’t continue to assure their leaders eventually those leaders will question whether they can rely on our military because they don’t know for sure if Trump and company won’t just bug out. So they’ll be left with just placation as their only option in the long run. This is not something that will happen over night but it is something that if left alone by Congress can become a serious issue that will expand beyond this current administration. If we fail on South Korea then Taiwan and Japan will question our resolve. This makes our job over there very crucial at this point that we get the diplomatic game back up and running.
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