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I never argued against reducing our presence. Maintaining skeleton bases capable of being beefed up in an emergency is exactly what I advocate. My senior thesis argued just that point. I am arguing against those in this thread who want us to totally pull out of South Korea. Yes we have 30,000 people in S.A. (we have troops in S.A. anyway), but they are not threatened by a conventional military threat but terrorists. This requires a completely different security strategy (re: the National Security Strategy and the Quadrennial Defense Review Report of 2001) than the one in Korea (which essentially a remnant of the Cold War). Our troops in South Korea help to deter conventional attack. No place in the world is threatened like Seoul is.

Regardless, your arguing with someone who basically agrees with you. Our presence in South Korea desperately needs to be rethought and rennovated--South Korea is no longer a helpless nation we're keeping on life support and the USFK should reflect this. This, however, in no way means we pull out entirely. By renovating our USFK we will strengthen our alliance with South Korea, not weaken it.

Re Taiwan: We're the only ones who care about them. That's the way it is. Neither South Korea nor Japan would help us in a war over the island. No one in the world would fight with us for Taiwan. That's just the sad truth. Which is a reason we need troops in Korea and the surrounding region. If we need to save Taiwan by ourselves, we need every military resource in the region we can get.

Re Taiwan: We're the only ones who care about them. That's the way it is. Neither South Korea nor Japan would help us in a war over the island. No one in the world would fight with us for Taiwan. That's just the sad truth. Which is a reason we need troops in Korea and the surrounding region. If we need to save Taiwan by ourselves, we need every military resource in the region we can get.

If a shooting war with China broke out over Taiwan, our military bases in South Korea and Japan would become legitimate military targets for the Chinese, especially if they are being used to prosecute the war. I don't see how South Korea and Japan can sit on the sidelines in that case.

Almost 21% of South Korea's exports go to the US with China (12%) and Japan (11%) being second and third. Approximately 19% of South Korea's imports come from Japan, with the US second at 16% and China at 9%. Any conflict between the US and China will have a major economic impact on all parties. It is also worth noting that the US receives more that 20% of China's exports with Hong Kong (17.5%), Japan (16.9%) and South Korea (4.7%) being the next three largest export destinations. The US, Japan, and South Korea have tremendous economic leverage over the Chinese should they threaten an invasion of Taiwan.