It's a tripwire. It guarantees that the North cannot begin hostilities without engaging directly with U.S. troops. For any administration prior to the current one it guaranteed that the U.S. would respond with more than talk. The same technique was used in Western Europe and in both cases it has worked just fine.
“It’s a tripwire. It guarantees that the North cannot begin hostilities without engaging directly with U.S. troops. For any administration prior to the current one it guaranteed that the U.S. would respond with more than talk. The same technique was used in Western Europe and in both cases it has worked just fine.”
I understand the theory. But the SK have been able to defend themselves just fine for years. Given the NK artillery emplacements, our division would take huge casualties very quickly. Europe was different. We had serious forces that were there to fight and Europe was not capable of defending against the Soviets. The 30,000 on the DMZ in Korea are there to get killed. Yes, it raised the stakes. But I’m not sure how that advanced American interests. A Japanese tripwire force would be just as effective and they have a much bigger dog in that hunt. I’m all for deploying American troops to fight if that advances our national interests. I have a problem with deploying American troops as hostages.