Does the Alliance Have a Future?
It’s emotionally tempting and probably in America’s long-term political interests to pronounce the alliance over and draw up plans to withdraw everyone. For military and economic reasons, however, that’s probably unlikely, and I suspect that the current round of troop reductions (I’ll go out on a limb and predict another one this fall) is likely to remind everyone that a vastly reduced U.S. presence in Korea serves the interests of both countries as long as China continues its military buildup....