“No declaration of war, no troops. Let other countries pay their way. The South Koreans -sure great folks and allies - but they make enough money they can pay for their defense, dammit.
The entirety of the rest of the world is not worth the blood of one American soldier or one taxpayer cent; no more foreign aid and only the minimum of bases.”
Agree with your last sentence. But Korea is an entirely different matter since NK does, or will have shortly, the ability to deliver a nuclear weapon directly onto our soil. And for me, it goes way beyond getting countries who do not constitute a direct threat to pay us for their defense. We should not be mercenaries either. Our youth deserve to live out their entire lives as opposed to giving them up in some African $hit hole country. Or the ME as well. And if we have to take out NK, no “follow on nation-building.” Feed them in the short term, but that’s all.
So we sell SK some nukes:-)
Yep, either take them out now of let the Japanese and South Koreans do it, ‘nuke now, pay later’ although Japan could probably have a working nuke and the ability to deliver it by this weekend, if they don’t already.