South Korea is making it official:

A high official from the National Security Council, speaking on condition of anonymity, said during a discussion with reporters that, “Korea will break away from its Cold War-era ‘camp’ diplomacy.” By “camp diplomacy,” it appears he was referring to the structure of conflict between the South Korean, U.S. and Japanese “camp” and the North Korean, Chinese and Russian “camp.”
. . . .

Receiving a report from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday, President Roh said, “Korea must play the role of balancer so that tensions do not revive within Northeast Asia.” It has been learned that the president has recently said that hegemonic competition between China and Japan was a major factor of insecurity in Northeast Asia, and that Korea needed to block a situation in which a U.S.-Japan alliance faced off against China.

So we can bring our troops home now, right? Of course not! Amazingly, South Korea insists that “[i]n the processes of carrying out the role of balancer, Korea will make as its base the Korea-U.S. alliance.” Uh huh. I’m sure that with the National Guard and Reserves overextended and two hot wars going on, Don Rumsfeld–like Odysseus ordering himself tied to the mast–will see the urgent priority of keeping 32,000 active duty personnel in Korea to protect the region from his own fiendish plans.

Korea–where policy comes from the barrel of a bong.

Here are links to Part I, Part II, Part III, Part III 1/2,and Part IV, and Part V.