[KS] Re: Still Invaded Economically and Culturally

Robert Armstrong chonan99 at hotmail.com
Mon Jul 31 06:34:47 EDT 2000


My question is; when Korea does unify, where do all the troops go?  Right 
now there is somewhere around a million men facing each other in the DMZ 
area and the rear areas included would obviously bring that force number up. 
  The large submarine navy of the North's along with their gun boats and 
missile boats, South Korea and her small navy of submarines and surface 
vessels, the large airforces of both countries, not to mention the rocketry 
of North Korea's.  Will China be happy with a shift of the troops to the 
Chinese border?  Will the Russians be happy when their weakly guarded border 
with the North Koreans is suddenly facing not the small backward rear units 
but a large force of men.  Don't forget Putian had made the comment that 
unless Russia is careful, the maritime provinces will become Korean, Chinese 
or Japanese, (I am pretty sure he meant that ethnically but who knows).  
Will Japan be relieved to have the combined navies of the North and South 
now as a potential to their own valued sea lanes, let alone a nice bit of 
open land to test their missiles, and with South Korean technology?  Will 
the generals in the North and the South be willing to be relieved of their 
power when a restructuring of the military would come about?  I am tend to 
doubt that.  Any suggestions what they will do with the military?

Robert


>From: R?iger Frank <ruediger.frank at rz.hu-berlin.de>
>Reply-To: korean-studies at mailbase.ac.uk
>To: korean-studies at mailbase.ac.uk
>Subject: Re: Still Invaded Economically and Culturally
>Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2000 16:17:24 +0200
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>At 16:08 27.07.00 -0700, you wrote:
> >Facts #3 and #4 (see below) seem more opinion than fact.  The U.S.
> >dominates the region's politics more than Japan, China, or Russia.  It is
> >the strongest military power and has had the most direct influence over
> >past South Korean political developments.  It is far from some distant,
> >neutral party.  Therefore, it is not an obvious fact to me that a unified
> >Korea would want to maintain any close formal alliance with the U.S. (as
> >opposed to peaceful relations) much less encourage or desire a continuing
> >U.S. military presence.
>
>...and the neighbors would hardly accept a continued US military presence
>in a unified Korea. Especially the PRC would be challenged, a risk that for
>my own life's sake I hope nobody will take. On the other hand, when the
>Americans retreat, Japan would have to rearm since in that case it looses
>its forward-defense by the US troops on the Korean PI. Imagine what the
>rest of Asia will think about this and how it will affect the image of
>Japanes products... After all, at least under the present conditions (which
>might change) there must be kind of a stabilizing factor in the peninsula.
>On the other hand, the USA will not be acceptable to many, and I doubt that
>Korea would like to have a continued foreign troop presence after
>unification at all. I don't see any solution, and so my conclusion is that
>there is no unification in sight. If there is no question, no answer is
>needed. We have a nice little balance in North East Asia, everybody is
>quite comfortable with it, except the Koreans (?), so none of the regional
>powers will be stupid enough to let any destabilizing and risky change
>happen. I don't say I like it, but this is like the whole matter looks to 
>me.
>
>Best,
>
>Rudiger Frank
>
>See also
>Rudiger Frank:  Regional Interests in North East Asia and Prospects for
>Korea's Independent Unification,
>in: http://www.cap.uni-muenchen.de/transatlantic/papers/korea.html
>
>
>
>
>***********************
>Ruediger FRANK
>Humboldt-University Berlin
>Korea Institute
>Fon: +49-30-55 99 878
>Fax: +49-30-2093-6666
>e-mail: ruediger.frank at rz.hu-berlin.de
>Web: http://www2.hu-berlin.de/korea
>***********************

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