[yongjik]

You do realize North Korea "not operating" means either a civil war between military factions with access to nuclear weapons, or South Korean/American forces dragged into a military operation right up the nose of China? So you would rather prefer that my relatives die in fire?

See, this is what I mean when I say I object to such reasoning. People are so bold, they're always willing to sacrifice other people's lives to defend freedom.

[totalZero]

> People are so bold, they're always willing to sacrifice other people's lives to defend freedom.

South Korea's forces had lost 70,000 men in five days before the USA came to your aid in 1950. In the fighting that ensued, 37,000 Americans perished to defend your country. Please consider that.

[dforrestwilson]

Yet the U.S. is at risk right now, simply for supporting South Korea militarily in both past and present.

Alliances are double-edged swords. I'm curious, what would be your perspective if the U.S. decided that South Korea was no longer worth defending and pulled it's troops back to Guam and Okinawa?

[yongjik]

> what would be your perspective if the U.S. decided that South Korea was no longer worth defending ...

You mean, what if the US decided that keeping an air force base within 1000 km of Beijing isn't worth the cost?

Well, it that case, it sucks, because our national defense budget will likely have to increase a lot. But an independent country cannot outsource its defense to others forever, so South Korea should have contingency plans for such a case, or at least I hope so.

As you said, alliance goes both ways. The military ties to the US did help us tremendously in the past. But the US is not stationing thousands of soldiers out of goodwill: they're doing it because South Korea is located at a really convenient position in America's game of global dominance. I think it's mutually beneficial (for now), but if America decides it isn't, well then that's it.

[fastball]

What does the US get out of having a military presence in South Korea? Sure, we have a base that's closer to our "enemy" than we would if we were just in Japan. But at this point, the US isn't going to win a war with a land army, so even if it was for aggressive military purposes, it wouldn't be nearly as effective as you think it would be.

Hint: maybe we keep military bases in SK to defend South Korean, because over the past 67 years of our alliance, South Korea has become a fantastic trade partner and we want to ensure that such a mutually beneficial relationship continues far into the future.

[mutteraloo]

You do realize that there are other scenarios, such as North Korea launching nuclear strike into Silicon Valley or New York? Would you prefer that? or North Korea failing quietly like the collapse of USSR?

[yongjik]

You've been hoodwinked by clickbait media. North Korea won't strike Silicon Valley or New York, ever. If you want to worry about that, you might as well worry about China or Russia striking New York: after all, there's a chance Putin will be alive after nuclear war, but there's zero chance Kim Jong Un will be alive after nuking America.

But you can't sell prospect of a nuclear war against China, because people have iPhones made in China, so they know it's absurd: why would China want a nuclear war? A threat has to be believable to sell to people. So we talk about North Korea. Nobody in the US has bought anything from North Korea: they are a dark, evil, and mysterious people, and it's easy to believe they can be also suicidal.

(Yes, the North Korean regime is evil: they're so evil that they make China look like boy scouts. But they aren't suicidal.)

[squarefoot]

> But you can't sell prospect of a nuclear war against China, because people have iPhones made in China

There are other reasons why going to war against China wouldn't be that advisable.

http://www.businessinsider.com/navy-chinese-microchips-weapo...

https://www.wired.com/2011/11/counterfeit-missile-defense/

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/fake-parts-in-hercules-aircr...