North Korea - Why Bother?

One international topic that constantly amazes me is the continual useless political dancing that we do with North Korea. The Korean Armistice was signed about 57 years ago and through all of these decades we have not been able to find a way to deal with North Korea. If the inability to rationally discuss peace and cooperation with North Korea was the only problem, then who really cares. North Korea has very little to offer us and if we cannot get along with them then it was not worth the effort to find common ground.


However, over those 57 years we have constantly had tens of thousands of troops stationed in Korea. If my memory is correct, we have about 35,000 troops currently stationed there. If the Obama administration is correct in their estimate that it will cost one million a year for each soldier stationed in Afghanistan, then we could expect to spend about $35 billion a year to station 35,00o troops in Korea. If we assume that on average this troop level has been sustained over the years, then we as a nation have spent about two TRILLION dollars to station U.S. military troops on the Korean peninsula. If we get very conservative in our estimate (say by reducing the $1,000,000 estimate by 50%), with the rationale that the troops in Korea are not in a shooting war at this time, we still would have spent a TRILLION dollars. Imagine how much better things would have been in America if we had spent that money on infrastructure improvement, new energy sources, better public schools, reduced taxes, or any number of more worthwhile endeavors.


But before we do that, let's look at what we have gotten for our TRILLION dollars. The South Korean economy is much better and healthier than it was in 1953, so much so that it has about the 12th biggest economy in the world (see the Korean section in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government.) One would think at this time South Korea could handle all of its defense needs, especially since North Korea has one of the worst economies in the world. Military duty is mandatory in South Korea so one would think they have enough troops to handle their defense needs. We are no closer to having a peace treaty between the two Koreas than we were 57 years ago so stationing thousands of U.S. troops there may not be the solution; after 57 years one could reach that conclusion.


However, this discussion was inspired by a recent Associated Press article that reported North Korea began a uranium enrichment program, to feed its nuclear weapons program, soon after it agreed to a 1994 deal with the U.S. to dismantle its existing nuclear weapons effort. This pact, as hailed by Clinton and the Democrats, was nothing more than a charade since it appears that North Korea had no intention of dropping its nuclear arms program. Sixteen years after the fact, we finally get the truth. Over that time we have spent untold diplomatic resources trying to convince this little, dysfunctional country to stop developing nuclear technology. President Obama is the latest member of the political class to do this meaningless dance with the North Koreans. Do we really think anything will change with this administration when nothing changed with the previous administrations? Do we really think that all of a sudden the North Koreans are going to do anything different than they did in the past, namely posture, delay, lie and not conform to any agreements?


Here's a thought - why not try something entirely different and follow Step 30 in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" which suggests bringing home all nonessential U.S. troops including those in Korea. The reasons for this step include the following:

• South Korea is rich enough as a country to defend itself from both a wealth and manpower perspective.
• If the North starts firing, then 35,000 or so U.S. troops will not make a big military difference when the one million man strong North Korean land army comes over the border. Thus, why even have an inadequate force there at all.
• North Korea holds no strategic, commercial, raw material, or any other worthwhile asset that we would be interested in dealing for.
• What makes us think that the North Koreans would ever be interested in a rational peace agreement when all of the other ones they have agreed to were not worth the paper they were written on.
• By leaving, we could actually weaken the North Korean regime since they no longer could keep their people in line by promising to protect them from the imperialistic Americans. No U.S. troops on the peninsula, no excuse for suppressing the North Korean people in the name of protection.
• Do we really want to continually spent tens of billions of dollars a year by stationing troops there like we have done for 57 years? Einstein quote again comes to mind: "the definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."

Korea is the perfect example of the political class doing the same irrational thing over and over because at some point in the distance past it may have made some degree of sense. These types of political behavior waste both financial and diplomatic resources at a time when the country needs those resources spent as efficiently and effectively as possible. Step 30 could be one way to break this thought process of stupidity.

Visit our website at www.loathemygovernment.com to order an autographed copy of the book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government -Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom and Destroying The American Political Class" and to sign up for the cause. The book is also available online at Amazon and Barnes And Noble.