When the Chinese hacked into your computer, they installed malicious software on your blog.

I think something that should be explored if the FTA falters over the mad cow madness is to reimplement the USFK troop cuts down to 25,000 from the current 28,500 that Pres. Bush promised 2MB he wouldn’t do during their summit in the US. I would assume the agreement to halt the troop cuts was in response to 2MB’s promise to open the beef market. The promise isn’t being kept so why should Bush keep his?

After that it will be sometime before any more troop cuts can happen just because of the lack of space for them in the US. When 2BCT, 2ID returned from Iraq I know guys that were living in rented out college dorm rooms because there was no barracks space for them because it was an unplanned troop withdrawal. It is not uncommon for soldiers returning from Iraq to live in temporary housing until barracks space gets opened up when another unit deploys freeing their barracks.

The closing of US bases during the latest BRAC as well as the decision to reduce troops in both Korea and Germany has caused a housing crisis that is slowly being taken care of with new facilities being constructed on bases across the countries. More US troops will be coming home from Iraq next year in one way or another (either McCain declaring victory or Obama declaring defeat) which will have priority on barracks space leaving any unplanned reductions of forces in USFK impossible for a least the next few years until new facilities can be funded and constructed to house all these soldiers.

As far as Obama being more likely to reduce USFK troops then McCain, it doesn’t matter because the logistics can’t support it. Just like Obama has recently begun to backtrack on his immediate withdrawal rhetoric from Iraq because not only are conditions on the ground improving drastically but the logistics cannot support his rhetoric as well.

However, just to think of other possibilities — isn’t China trying to work on a moon project? – to recreate one of the hallmark successes of the United States by putting a Chinaman on the moon?

What if China has an overriding desire to “fulfill” some sort of “manifest destiny” that it believes should come along with the economic growth everybody seems convinced China is going to have…???

Japan has superpower status in economics — but it is not a superpower. Due to its 20th century history, it has major internal and external pressure that drastically limits its dealings with the world and in world bodies like the UN.

What if China decides it must take an active roll in things if/when it gains real economic super power status?

What if it decides that the way to do that is to use De Gualle’s advice — which was that France could only regain its lost position in the world post-WWII by finding ways to disagree with the Anglo-American led sphere of influence???

That isn’t what I’ve got my money on — but it is a real possibility.

You get it. You so get it. China will use soft power to bully neighbors. It will not invade them, save for a possible buffer state in North Korea should it fall. Vacating Korea and Japan will force those two nations along with others in the region to step up to the plate and defend their interests more actively and directly.

One very important asset for China is international goodwill in other developing countries. Now not all indentured laborers everyone in Sudan, Burma, and elsewhere feels warm and fuzzy about Chinese investment, but it is true that most of the developing world views China as a more benign power than the US. Acts of military aggression against smaller, developing countries would cost China international goodwill which it cashes in to exercise political and economic clout. Even our reluctant ally, South Korea, regards China more favorably than the US, despite conflicts over the Northeast Project and other bilateral issues.

Now who do you think is more likely to excise the vestigal organ that is USFK – McCain or Obama?

Korea’s visceral hostility to everything American isn’t a phase, and Roh wasn’t a mere symptom of such a phase.

Ding!! Ding!! Ding!!

I said numerous times over the past couple of years that we should watch South Korea carefully once the GNP retook the Blue House as it seemed they were destined to do.

…I knew that would be a time to test one of my long-held theories – that South Korean anti-US culture since the early 1990s has been about stoking Korean nationalism while taking it for granted the Blue House would make sure the alliance stayed strong — which is why anti-US activity was so low when Roh – a president they couldn’t trust not to put their anti-US ravings into actual national policy – was the president.

Like with Dr. Lankov, I came to my conclusions by talking to Korean adults every day for my first two years in Korea (1996-1998). The vast majority of my students were between the ages of 28 and 38 – so not fresh faced university students. And although I was an American, the topics that they would want to discuss in class were frequently taken directly out of the press and frequently negative concerning the US-SK relationship.

That was before 2002. That was before 2000. That was even before the I’amF bailout of 1998.

But, nothing will change…

If Iraq and Afghanistan had drained more resources from the US military, we might have seen Donald Rumsfeld’s plan to pull US troops out of South Korea go through.

Now, with things in Iraq becoming more stable, nothing short of another war starting will see US troops out of Korea. It just won’t happen….

The status quo is too powerful….

There have been major upheavals in Korean society – and periods of anger directed at the US in Korea – since the very start in 1945. It happened in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and now.

It will continue and continue and continue — until the North implodes/explodes — and US troops are drawn into the vortex.

That is what keeps me up at night…..

Much appreciate the just sentiment expressed in our host’s rambling rose and in reader’s responses, and am glad to see that Prof. Lankov remains steadfastly at his post. Two observations here to offer:

Firstly, it is curious how, just as in 1987, Seoul’s amalgamated university student body seems to “know” just how far they can go without touching off consequences they may not be prepared for. Certainly, they have done nothing so far to engender the gut anger of the American people with their candlelight antics. Readers here can all imagine graphic ways that Koreans might bring their USA antipathy to the fore of American consciousness, with drastic security policy consequences to follow. Is that serendipity, or a sense of kabuki?

Secondly, at the other end of the equation, is USA security policy concerning Korea a stand-alone edifice, or is it subsidiary to America’s relations with Japan and China? If USFK dissolves and departs the Korean peninsula, does that start the wheels of major security policy change turning in Japan, and does that in turn arouse China?

None of the above musings detract from the moral clarity that Korean youth well deserve a generous dousing of icewater. Considering the deathless example of their heroic grandparents, this aches terribly.