I didn’t tell you that my private view is that the troops are there as a trip wire (which you call a trigger point)but the argument is still the same—it is a deterent.
One of the problems I have with US foreign policy is that we make alliances and then fail to live up to our assurances when a determined foe causes casualties to our troops on the ground and it appears that we would have to defend for a long period of time.
Our leaders—and to be truthful, many patriotic citizens—simply will not hold up under pressure on alliances for any length of time. We want fast solutions. This makes it difficult to have any meaningful long term alliances to protect our interests—because really important national interests are hard to agree on and even harder to implement long term when the national interests of the other country may change.
Tell me your choices for national interests and I’ll tell you where we should have force agreements or force agreements to our hegemony.
There has been an isolationist stream of consciousness in our national ethos since the beginning of the country. That’s what Ron Paul has tapped into and it is a legitimate argument if you posit that we have no natural interests in what goes on beyond our borders.
Wildbill,
We seem to agree the role that our troops are actually playing in Korea. My feeling is that our commitment to national security MUST NOT change over time, but TATICS should and must change over time to adapt to the realities of our technologies and priorities of our resources.
Do you remember the reason why we had troops Korea? It was due to the end of WWII and Korea had been partitioned in half between the Soviets and the U.S. as a result of the Japanese surrender. With the Japanese gone, somebody had to “administer” it. So the Soviets set up shop north of the 38th and the U.S. south of it. Then the North got stupid and invaded the south. We pushed them back almost to China, then the Chinese got in, and we both settled back to the 38th.
It’s been “60 years”. Times have changed. Do we want to make sure that we remain committed to the South Koreans? Sure. There’s plenty of AIR power we can bring to bear on the North and destroy whatever is left of any electrical capacity in their state if they decide to get crazy.
But as far as grunt troops crossing the border and taking shots - NO. Not in today’s world. There’s plenty of South Korean males to do that job. Our precious flesh and blood need to be saved for our “security”, not our “interests”.
The days of the U.S. being the “policeman” of the world was necessitated by the fact that there one ONE SUPER BULLY that needed to be contained everywhere around the globe. That day is over. There are more little bullies around, but the locals now need to start to shoulder the burden with their own ‘flesh and blood’ in their own neighborhood.