Posted on 05/04/2018 1:28:38 AM PDT by Atlantic Friend
President Trump asks Pentagon to look at options for withdrawing troops from South Korea: report
President Trump has asked the Pentagon to look at options for reducing the number of U.S. troops stationed in South Korea as he prepares to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, The New York Times reports.
The U.S. currently has roughly 28,000 soldiers stationed on the Korean peninsula. It’s unclear if the plans will call for a full or partial withdrawal of troops.
Some at the Pentagon are concerned that bringing troops home from South Korea ahead of Trump’s meeting with Kim could create tensions with neighboring Japan, the Times reported.
Kim and Trump are expected to meet in the coming weeks as the U.S. pushes for the denuclearization of North Korea. Trump said Tuesday a date and location for the meeting will be announced in the next "couple of days."
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(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
I worked with some of those captains and majors a few years later.
To be honest, I don’t know how strong South Korea is militarily. I do know that they spend next to nothing (i.e., 2.6% of GNP), considering the threat they’re under. Much less than Israel’s 6% or more.
I suspect that, with several thousand missiles raining down on Seoul, they’d fold faster than we could get there, particularly with China now setting up a perimeter intended to keep us out.
In any case, it costs next to nothing to keep our troops there, so I prefer that, at least until we’re SURE that the North is not a threat anymore.
2.6% of South Korea’s GDP is probably a huge amount of money and quite a bit more than most NATO countries spend.
“2.6% of South Korea’s GDP is probably a huge amount of money and quite a bit more than most NATO countries spend.”
$32 Billion in South Korea, about 5% of what we spend. As to Europe, Germany still spends $43B, and they’re not staring down the barrel of a mortal enemy still at war with them.
I’d prefer not to find out the hard way that we’ve underestimated the Norks capabilities, yet again.
Let’s see: We pull out and China understands that we just might do what MacArthur wanted.
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