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Re #2

The artillery tubes can do a lot of damage. But as for 1,000 tanks, they are not really useful unless they can drive on mountains.:) There are only a few approach roads to Seoul. Only the tiny fraction of them need to be blown up to block the advance of N. Korean troops. And there are other obstacle courses ready for N. Korea troops. They have to first pass through crowded commuter towns. Street battle will ensue in those towns where defenders can pick off advancing troops behind numerous conrete buildings in the area.

The key to this article, and this assessment of our basing needs in SK, is Rumsfield phrase "with new technology."

With ground troopers comprising only a trip-wire now anyway, we know to truly engage the NK, if it ever came to that, we would have to bomb the snot out of them and bring in massive troops. We can do that with aircraft carriers and the expanded operations of seabases.

We have dramatically upped the number of sorties fighters can fly and bombs they can drop and precision bombs they can drop per day since the First Gulf War. It looks like the thinkers are beginning to realize that we can fight NK if we have to regardless of SK bases. And if we were to pull out of SK, that would increase our flexibility and reduce our infrastructure costs.

I have a different take than one of the analysts quoted regarding the need to not tie any troop withdrawal to the present (non)crisis. My sense is that, rather than conveying that NK "won" this round, the opposite posture is conveyed. Withdrawing troops graphically demonstrates:

1) Okay, SK, you think you can handle this and your people don't want our presence or our money any longer. Fine, knock yourself out. And,

2) Memo to NK: we've very confident we can crush your threat regardless of whether we have bases in SK. We can bring it to you, if you make that necessary. Also we said we are not going to bargain with you, and we are not: instead we are going home. Good-bye.

3) Withdrawal also would diminish the ability of NK to use U.S. presence as a pretense for all its military posturing.

You forgot to mention that all of the mountain passes and hiway overpasses are already prepared for demolition. Have been for thirty or forty years. Also the tanks aren't much good once the weather turns better and the rice paddies thaw. They will be stuck on the roads and the roads will be impassible. The NK airforce is a joke and the US and SK flyboys will have a turkey shoot that will make the "Hiway of Death" look like a sunday school picnic.