Uh Oh: US Walks Out On South Korea Talks Over Military Cost-Sharing

Hotair ^ | 11/20/2019 | Ed Morrissey

[Zhang Fei]

[Do you for one second believe that South Korea would willingly go over to China?
Before that ever happened, they would probably enter into a mutual assistance treaty with Japan and possibly with Taiwan, Indonesia, or even Australia and/or New Zealand, forming a new and meaningful “SEATO” organization.]

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Alliances are not an easy thing to form or sustain. US alliances have survived for almost 80 years because the US was always willing to be the lender of last resort, the power willing to assume the lion’s share of the burden. I don’t see any other country in the world that is willing to take on that responsibility. It’s a big ask, and an impossible one in the Orient.

[Reily]

That type of an alliance would require significant naval assets. No one other then the US has that.

[dfwgator]

China basically wants their own “Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere”

[SeekAndFind]

RE: Wondering if we (Trump) are threatening to withhold aid? That is blackmail, ya know.
Where is Schiff? Someone should tell him.

If Schiff knows better than Trump how to handle foreign policy, let him run for President.

In the meantime, HE IS NOT PRESIDENT, therefore, he has no business doing this impeachment hearing over disagreements with his foreign policy.

[chrisser]

I have no experience to confirm your analogy, but it sure appears to be an effective one.

Thanks for the insight into Asian thinking.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: US was always willing to be the lender of last resort, the power willing to assume the lion’s share of the burden.

Isn’t China already doing that?

However, if you can’t pay back your debts, there are conditions, like China taking over your ports ( see Sri Lanka ).

[dhs12345]

There are a lot of armchair quarterbacks in the Impeachment hearings. Trump is a champion of the American taxpayer and he is being successful. He is pissing off a lot of bureaucrats, too. But good. It should have happened a long time ago.

We have been taken for granted by our allies and South Korea is a very rich country. Time for them to “invest more” in their national defense.

[Mariner]

I think we should keep Japan.

It plays to our military strength (air/sea) and there’s no risk of ground war.

We just need them to pay the whole bill, which they can and will do.

After all, we took it far and square, and at great cost.

[glorgau]

If the South Koreans make themselves vassals of the Chinese over $4 billion, they were already a lost cause.

[FatherofFive]

How about bring them home, discharge them, and boost the economy with thousands of qualified employees that corporations keep saying they have a shortage of?

That is a good thing too. Crushing the cartels will do more to stop crime in the US, bring prosperity to Mexico, and stop illegal immigratopn

[Jumper]

The South Koreans well remember the last time they spoke openly of siding with China against the US and what happened. Japan won’t be Seoul’s only problem, and there is nothing China can offer Koreans today or historically that would endear the Chinese to the Koreans. Being a little sister is as was always.

Trump is doing what Trump does best, getting the best possible deal. If Korean Cars (Kia, Hyundai) and phones (Samsung/LG) along with electronics were to take a dive in US sales (Alone), or simply cost more due to tariffs the Korean economy would be broken rice.

[Zhang Fei]

[That type of an alliance would require significant naval assets. No one other then the US has that.]

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South Korea and Japan could each build a major navy. Japan built one when it’s economy was 1/10 of the US. War-related monuments all over the Far East bear silent testimony to that fact. But that would require serious defense spending, and national sacrifice. I doubt they’re up to the challenge.

There’s a vast, brain-dead contingent among the populations of our allies that believes our military bases abroad hold them in a kind of serfdom, and are responsible for our First World incomes. Never mind that the US achieved the highest per capita income in the West at some point in the 19th century, thereby attracting hordes of European immigrants like Trump’s grandfather. Never mind the US’s vast natural resource output. Never mind the broad and deep ranks of American corporate behemoths that include Apple, Pfizer, Boeing, Microsoft, et al. In the minds of these foreign cranks, it’s the ubiquity of expensive overseas American military bases lording it over the natives that gives the US economy its vigor.

And it’s this contingent that will keep defense spending low, right up to the point that a massive Chinese invasion force crosses their border. They can’t say we didn’t warn them.

[dfwgator]

Never mind that the US achieved the highest per capita income in the West at some point in the 19th century, thereby attracting hordes of European immigrants like Trump’s grandfather.

We were once allies with Japan after WWI, do you know what triggered them turning into an enemy? When the US cut back quotas on immigrants from Asia, the Japs considered it an insult, and it helped give rise to the militarists.

[DoodleDawg]

I think we should keep Japan.

What if they refuse to pay more too?

It plays to our military strength (air/sea) and there’s no risk of ground war

If Korea won't pay and Japan doesn't pay then what do we need our military strength there for?

[DoodleDawg]

Crushing the cartels will do more to stop crime in the US, bring prosperity to Mexico, and stop illegal immigratopn

Haven't we had enough endless wars?

[Zhang Fei]

[RE: US was always willing to be the lender of last resort, the power willing to assume the lion’s share of the burden.
Isn’t China already doing that?]

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It’s a metaphor. When Saddam stood poised to take all of the Gulf region’s oil resources, it was Uncle Sam that landed the 101st and 82nd as a tripwire force. Without the US as the “lender” of last resort, Saddam would probably rule the Middle East and North Africa today.

[butlerweave]

It does seem like a lot. $5B/28,500 = $175,000 per soldier.

Back-payments are a Bitch

[SeekAndFind]

RE: Without the US as the “lender” of last resort, Saddam would probably rule the Middle East and North Africa today.

Not if Iran, Israel or Turkey can help it.

[FatherofFive]

Haven't we had enough endless wars?

Not endless wars. We could crush the cartels in less than a year.

The middle east wars will never end. The prophesy to Hagar that Ishmael would “live in hostility toward all his brothers” (Genesis 16:11-12) affirms that reality.

Imagine a prosperous Mexico, with no drug cartels and no human trafficking.

[Zhang Fei]

[We were once allies with Japan after WWI, do you know what triggered them turning into an enemy? When the US cut back quotas on immigrants from Asia, the Japs considered it an insult, and it helped give rise to the militarists. ]

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That was just another excuse floated by the Japanese and adopted wholesale by American academics. Should China attack countries that fail to take in Chinese immigrants? The Japanese were WWI allies because they had their eye on German territory in the Pacific. They had been expanding against the Chinese empire, and American attempts to hold that expansion back prompted Japanese hostility. In Japanese minds, it was merely doing on the Asian mainland what various Chinese rulers had done for thousands of years. Foreign opposition to that expansion was just an obstacle to be surmounted, and one excuse was just as good as another. Deeds are a better indicator of intent than words.