USFK to Iraq–You Heard it Here Weeks Ago . . .

. . . but you probably made the same guess yourself. Rummy will indeed take troops from Korea to send them to Iraq, just as I’ve been suggesting. The diplomatic significance of the U.S. Army taking half of its infantry strength–a whole brigade of 4,000 troops–is hard to overstate. This is an earthquake. Here are just a few of the angles from which one can analyze this.

US Force Restructuring

It marks a dramatic escalation of the agreed timetable for pulling back from the DMZ, which wasn’t to start until next year. This event will happen in a relative instant–in just a month, according to press reports (note: media reports, quoting a Pentagon source, incorrectly state that this will coincide with the normal rotation cycle in late summer; of course, the cycle starts this month and peaks in June). A quiet scaling back of support forces is sure to follow, given that the USFK has a tail-to-tooth ratio of at least 2:1. Thus, if 20,000 of the 37,000 USFK members are Army, this represents a loss of 4,000 of them immediately. If support services like legal, medical, signal, finance, public works, and contracting suddenly find themselves overstaffed, look for thousands of slots in those branches to go unfilled while branch managers send the personnel elsewhere. It’s likely that this will mean a secondary downsizing of at least 2,000 by the end of this year, with more to follow. It could mean as much as a 50% reduction in Army strength in Area I (DMZ area) in one year.

ROK Army Dispatch to Iraq

This will be Roh’s fig leaf for calling off the entire episode or, more likely, paring it back drastically. It had already become apparent that this deployment would be of little military value way up in the Kurdish areas. Roh’s main task now is damage control with the U.S. Congress and media. Whether or not Roh takes the bait, the U.S. has just seized the initiative from him with this move. South Korea badly miscalculated in its appraisal of U.S. public opinion and official reaction to the recent anti-American / pro-North Korean sentiments, especially in light of the changed military and economic realities in Korea. Americans, for the most part, don’t take to the streets over things that piss them off. They write Congress. Congress listened, and it will get many more letters when South Korea scales back its deployment to Iraq. Will South Korea finally understand that it has a PR problem? Thus far, they’ve bungled it as badly as the U.S. PR machine (if there is one) bungled South Korea.

South Korean Public Reaction

Those who will be most worried are the least likely to protest. The short-term panic will subside, and the voters will accept the signficance of withdrawal before the next election. All they will notice will be the secondary economic effects.

The Chosun Ilbo states that “all these issues come down to the question of how this government evaluates the meaning of the alliance between Korea and the United States.” Wrong. The question is one of how the South Korean people view the alliance and the U.S. troops that form its core. Budaechigae cites a report that 77% of them oppose the withdrawal, despite this poll, and this one, and a mountain of anecdotal evidence (here, here, and here) that reflect deep antipathy toward the troops themselves. The South Korean people themselves elected this government and alienated the American public by their individual acts of hate. By placing the blame for this divorce only on Roh’s diplomacy, the Korean media miss the real foundation for the whole story.

ROK Economy

The short-term effect is likely to be a brief and modest shock, from which the markets will quickly recover. The real question is whether Roh will be willing to keep ROK force levels at the necessary level to replace the Americans. If so, it’s the increase in tax rates that will make the difference and hurt foreign investment. My guess is that he’ll let overall force levels wither and just try to plug the most glaring gaps.

North Korea Policy

This dramatic escalation of the USFK restructuring means that the U.S. administration has given up on making real progress in the 6-party talks and doesn’t mind signalling it. Bush and Rummy want U.S. forces in Korea to be a real deterrent again for the first time in decades . . . soon. This is more evidence that Bush intends to get serious about North Korea after the election–if he wins, and if he can stabilize Iraq. It also confirms that he’s wisely moved the option of a ground invasion off the table. It’s also an unmistakeable shot across Roh’s bow, one which follows the election cycle by a safe interval to avoid a predictable backlash.