General Douglas MacArthur said that old soldiers never die, they just fade
away. It seems that old military commitments also never die. But they also
don't fade away - they live on forever.
That's certainly the case with America's security guarantee for South Korea.
The "Mutual" Defense Treaty - which in practice only runs from Washington to
Seoul - was inaugurated in 1953. The treaty made sense at the time. The United
States had to fight a bloody war to rebuff a North Korean invasion, as well as
subsequent Chinese intervention. South Korea, an economic wreck and political
autocracy, would not long have survived without American support.
But South Korea has long surpassed North Korea economically
and developed into a genuine democracy. The Cold War has also ended, stripping
the North of its big supporters. The North became an international pariah while
the South became one of the world's 12 largest economic powers. Seoul even
began shipping money, food, and other aid to North Korea.
The continuing US presence in Japan, currently at 33,200 troops, makes even
less sense. Having disarmed the imperial power at the end of World War II,
Washington had little choice but to defend it. Moreover, American forces acted
as a "cap in the bottle", as Major General Henry Stackpole famously put it,
reassuring Tokyo’s neighbors.
But Japan long ago enjoyed an economic miracle that turned it into the world's
second-ranking economic power. Regional suspicions of Japan have not
disappeared, but although North Korean aggressiveness and Chinese nationalism
have generated greater popular support for a more active defense and foreign
policy, the prospect of renewed Japanese aggression is about as likely as an
invasion from Mars.
Yet nothing's really changed in America's military role. The United States
maintains bases and troops in both South Korea and Japan and guarantees the
security of both states. American force levels have come down, but its
responsibilities remain the same. Increased Japanese and South Korean wealth
have led Washington to demand that the nations do more, but the US government
just wants greater assistance to promote its own priorities.
Local opposition has forced some reconsideration of some base facilities.
Okinawa remains a sore point between the US and Japanese governments, while the
United States and South Korea have been negotiating over the South's share of
base relocation and garrison support costs. However, the idea that the United
States should step back and turn over regional security duties has occurred to
almost no one in Washington.
But now is the time for a complete rethink of American security policy,
including in East Asia. It doesn't matter whether John McCain or Barack Obama
is the victor on November 4; Washington's insistence that its allies remain
subordinate belongs in the wastebasket of history.
Old commitments, poor justifications
Alliances, bases and deployments should be a means, not an end. During the Cold
War they helped preserve fragile allied states from potent enemies, but that
world has disappeared. Instead of retiring the outmoded institutions, US
policymakers turned them into an end, to be preserved irrespective of changing
circumstances.
Officials have worked to come up with new justifications for old commitments.
Now, Washington talks about using military alliances to address issues such as
refugees, environment, and drug trafficking, as if army divisions and marine
expeditionary forces have anything to do with solving such problems.
The principle reason to drop America's East Asian security commitments is their
cost. The biggest expense is not the overseas bases, as both South Korea and
Japan provide varying levels of host nation support, but the additional units
necessary to back up America's promises to go to war.
The worst policy would be to threaten action without possessing the means to
act. The United States spends as much on the military as the rest of the world
combined and more in real terms than at any point since World War II - but not
to defend itself - It spends that much to defend everyone else.
The United States has nearly 800 military installations sprinkled around the
globe, improving Washington's ability to meddle in the affairs of other
nations. But as the attacks of 9/11 demonstrated, despite all of its money and
power the Department of Defense is ill-equipped to actually defend America.
The only way to cut costs is to cut commitments. The deficit is $400 billion
this year and will top half a trillion dollars next year. Total military
outlays, including for Afghanistan and Iraq, will run an incredible $700
billion in 2009. The only way to reduce that figure is to start doing less.
Another reason to tell Japan and South Korea that they are on their own is the
risk of war. Admittedly, conflict doesn't look likely for either country, but
the United States could rest much easier if it wasn't the ultimate guarantor of
both countries' security.
With security commitments to both governments and troops on the ground, America
is stuck if war breaks out. And the mess in Georgia demonstrated how local
politicians who expect US support often behave in utterly irresponsible ways.
It was one thing to risk conflict over distant allies during the Cold War, when
everything seemed to be connected to everything else. But it makes far more
sense today for the United States to sit back and play the role of off-shore
balancer. That is, if a crisis develops that has global implications and that
cannot be contained by America's friends, then Washington could consider
intervening. Otherwise America should stay out.
South Korea and Japan can defend themselves. North Korea is an international
and diplomatic wreck. South Korea seeking American support against the North is
like the United States requesting international assistance to deter an attack
by Mexico. Indeed, though the latest South Korea Defense White Paper declares
that "the North Korean army is a clear and present threat," Seoul is busy
subsidizing the North. That's strange behavior if Pyongyang is poised to launch
a new aggressive war. South Korea's increasingly close relationship with China,
including expanded military exchanges, makes aggression ever less likely from
that direction as well.
Japan obviously has the wherewithal to construct whatever military force it
believes to be necessary to deter Chinese and North Korean aggression. It isn't
Washington's job to decide what that is. But it makes no sense for the United
States to provide those forces instead.
North Korea's nuclear program obviously remains a concern, but America's
conventional deployments offer no help in that regard. And Washington's 26,000
troops on the peninsula provide the North with plenty of nuclear hostages.
Bring them home and the United States could make Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions
a regional rather than an American issue.
Friendly nations will do a lot more to protect themselves if they can't rely on
America to bail them out. For South Korea, with roughly 40 times the GDP and
twice the population of the North, to remain vulnerable to a North attack is
frankly ludicrous. There is no principle of geography on the Korean Peninsula
that dictates the southern country will always have fewer tanks than the
northern one. It's a matter of South Korean policy. And that's fine - if Seoul
isn't relying on the United States to make up the gap.
Japan could also do a lot more to build up a defensive force and unnerve its
neighbors by purchasing interceptors and frigates rather than building up a
large army. If Japan decided it didn't need to do any more, that would be fine
too. But friendly states should take charge of their own security destinies and
stop relying on Washington for aid.
Real change
Finally, downplaying America's military role would improve overall US relations
with other countries. The continuing presence of bases and troops creates
endless local grievances. Part of that reflects nationalist frustrations with
the foreign control that inevitably accompanies foreign garrisons. There are
also the inevitable problems that come from putting a large number of young
American males in the middle of a foreign country and culture.
The US government has a particular image problem with young South Koreans, who
tend for instance to view America as a greater threat than North Korea. But
anger towards Washington extends well beyond universities; the recent protests
against US beef imports were directed at far more than the fear of consuming
unsafe food.
As a result, President George W Bush received a less-than-friendly reception
when he visited in early August, and in Japan, the heavy concentration of US
bases in Okinawa has spawned strong opposition to America's presence in that
province. Without the presence of US military forces, which emphasize
Washington's dominance, the bilateral relationships would be closer to one of
equals, with greater emphasis on private economic and cultural ties rather than
on government-to-government geopolitical relations.
Washington is filled with the mantra of "change", as both the Obama and the
McCain campaigns vie for support. But both major political parties represent a
status quo in which the United States must forever remain dominant everywhere,
subsidizing prosperous and populous allies, occupying and transforming failed
states, and micro-managing world affairs. Other than disagreeing over policy
toward Iraq, Obama and McCain are marching in geopolitical lockstep.
There are, of course, many foreign policy issues over which reasonable people
can reasonably disagree. But the disappearance of any need to defend countries
that have grown wealthy while their potential enemies have dissipated is not
one of them. It's time to let America's Cold War commitments, especially those
in Asia, just fade away.
Doug Bandow, a Foreign Policy In Focus contributor, is the Robert A Taft
fellow at the American Conservative Defense Alliance. He is a former special
assistant to president Ronald Reagan and the author of several books, including
Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire (Xulon).
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