Is Rumsfeld trying to provoke North Korea?

Excellent background piece from NY Times... http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/29/international/asia/29KORE.html

The NY Times, along with other media, have in the last few days been carrying reports of mass rapes of women and girls in Shan province in Myanmar (formerly Burma) by the Burmese army.

Though the quote I'm linking here is from 96, who'll want to bet that the same situation does not still apply...
http://danenet.wicip.org/fbc/files/article3.html

blatham, Democracy through the "co-operative use of the internet" seems a far-fectched idea at best. Evidently, the government of China also thinks that's possible. They have closed down all internet cafes, saying they are 'unsafe.' c.i.

Asherman's analysis, presented in several posts on this thread is, in my view, remarkably lucid, complete, and based on fact - as opposed to the supposition that too often serves as the foundation for other estimates of this situation.

The North Korean government remains what it has been ever since it launched an invasion of the South in 1949 -- lawless, acquisitive, bullying and dangerous to the world. The record of its negotiating tactics during the several years of discussions leading to and after the current armistice ending combat in the Korean War it started is utterly clear and compelling. The Clinton administration's foolish attempt to negotiate and bribe this rogue government out of behavior it had already renounced will rank as one of the greatest blunders of the age.

We need to focus clearly on the central elements of its avowed and all-too-evident strategy, and avoid the illusions created by its occasinal offers of negotiations and even rarer episodes of less-than-usual levels of bullying and threatening behavior. We can and should pick our time, but this regime must eventually be destroyed.

ci

Yes, I'm sorry, I actually pasted in those last two sentences in error. It was the first sentence that was relevant to previous points under discussion.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/korea/0,2759,331519,00.html

It seems the answer to au1929's thread question is No.

Although the Korean War firmly identified South Korea (ROK) as a US ally, subsequent US administrations were not always convinced of the continuation of that alliance. Richard Nixon and his National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, favored withdrawing troops from South Korea as part of their plan for improving relations with China.
When Jimmy Carter sought to complete the Nixon-Kissinger withdrawal program, he ran into stiff opposition both from the US military and from some of his own advisors. The current popularity of naming Clinton as the fall guy for N.Korea has some built-in historical errors.

dyslexia,

I'm well aware of President Carter's ill-advised and (happily) thwarted attempt to pull our ground forces out of Korea. However I know of no active consideration of such a move on the part of President Nixon or any of his advisors. Indeed the record of their dialogues with China shows no hint whatever of such a consideration. Where did you get this (mis)information?

You are correct however in that we shouldn't blame only President Clinton - we should also include Carter.

US mishandling, bungling, and general ineptness in the matter of dealing with The Korean Question goes a bit further back than Carter. Had Truman taken action other than as he saw fit to do, there might very well today be no Korean Question. Ike, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Reagan, and Bush The Elder each contributed their own bit to the overall problem we currently face. That Ford can't be blamed for much if any of the present mess is due, I'm sure, merely to lack of opportunity. Given time, he too would have screwed something up over there. We have a pretty consistent record of over fifty years standing.



timber

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/29/international/asia/29SEOU.html

georgeob

Let me welcome you to the Politics forum and toss in a quick note: one of the goals we have in the Politics forum here on A2K is a reduction in the partisan posturing and rhetoric that we witnessed, particularly lately, on abuzz or which we see on TV shows such as Crossfire. It seems rather improbable that one party/doctrine is going to get it all right and the other get it all wrong. There are a lot of folks here with impressive smarts and knowledge. Your mannerly and reasonable request to Dylexia for more information to verify is claim is precisely the way in which we go.

Asherman said: I think this sentence suggests a rather ill-advised enthusiasm, and simplistic assessment, though Asherman may not have meant it in quite that way. If the only factors were the US and North Korea, it seems obviously true - there's no comparison between the two sides. But with South Korea and Japan at real risk, and with China and Russia likely having a different take from this administration's notions of what an ideal world might look like, 'cleaning NK's clock' is close to being moot. The administration apparently recognizes this too, and is heading in the diplomatic direction.

But the arrival of this new problem with North Korea underlines, for me, how unique the three present situations (NK, Sadaam, and Al Qaida) are in terms of resolution. Particularly, it presents the the dilemma of how our massive military strength is far less helpful than it would be in a situation such as WW2.

Most obviously, our aircraft carriers and stealth bombers don't have applicability to Al Qaida (who may very well, particularly right now while the US is being pulled in two directions, send some more surprises our way - a prospect which sobers me considerably not least of all because of the zest for indiscriminate revenge which might result).

Then, there is the often noted and, I think, quite real prospect that an attack on Iraq will put a fire under the Al Qaida recruitment drive (even leaving out the possibility of economic turmoil which might result under some of the uglier possible scenarios).

And North Korea, quite distinct from the other two (who are themselves only related because the people involved have the same color skin and live in approximately the same part of the world for the most part) presents those problems I mentioned above related to neighboring states either at risk of attack from NK or who might even become involved with us adversarially.

I ought to add, as a small addendum applicable to the question at the top of this thread, that the 'axis of evil' speech was maybe a bit ill-advised. This is particularly embarrassing to me as the chap who wrote that bit of sparky prose is a Canadian, David Frum, no longer working in Washington possibly because his wife was bragging on the phone overly much about her husband's contribution.

Timber
Specifically what action are you alluding to. Was it thwarting Mc Arthur's ill concieved plan to invade China.

In August 1969, President Park Chung Hee and President Nixon met in San Francisco. They issued a joint communique; at the conclusion of this meeting which was significantly different from that issued after Park's meeting with President Lyndon Johnson in 1968.7 Rather than the pledge to offer "prompt and effective assistance to repel armed attack" that his predecessor had made, Nixon agreed only "to meet armed attack against the Republic of Korea in accordance with the Mutual Defense Treaty between the Republic of Korea and the United States."

In 1971, Nixon began to reduce the ground presence in Korea by withdrawing the 7th Infantry Division. After this withdrawal, only the 2nd Infantry Division remained. This action reduced the U.S. military forces from approximately 60,000 soldiers to about 40,000.8 Because of the deterrent value attributed to the American presence, the Korean government was profoundly disturbed by the Nixon decision. As a result, President Park launched a major effort during the early 1970s in the Third Five- year Economic Development Plan (1972-76) to increase the industrial capabilities of his country so that South Korea would become as self-sufficient as possible in the production of military hardware. Park gave particular attention to the development of the iron and steel industries, heavy machinery, transport equipment, and chemical industrialization.9 Quite obviously, Korean confidence in American reliability was shaken by the Nixon troop withdrawal decision at least in part because of policy differences between the executive and the legislative branches and also by concerns that the ROK was not as important to the United States as other geopolitical and geostrategic considerations. The latent fears always just below the surface of the bilateral relationship were exacerbated by this action.

Lovely research dyslexia...thank you.

A very relevant analysis here of the uniqueness of asia...
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/29/weekinreview/29SANG.html

BBC's coverage on Powell's statement...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2613173.stm

Friction began to develop in the Washington-Seoul relationship after the United States withdrew one of its two divisions from South Korea in 1971 and intensified after President Park Chung Hee of the Republic of Korea instituted rigorous authoritarian measures under his 1972 constitution. This tension led to an accelerated effort by the Park government to gain support in the United States Congress. The methods used by Seoul's lobbyists ultimately resulted in the embarrassing "Koreagate" affair of 1977, involving former Ambassador Kim Dong-jo and rice dealer Park Tong Sun. Investigations by the Ethics Committee and by the Subcommittee on International Organizations of the Committee on International Relations of the United States House of Representatives received much press coverage and weakened United States support for South Korea.

During his presidential election campaign in 1976, Jimmy Carter pledged, if elected, to withdraw all combat troops from South Korea. His victory aggravated United States-South Korean relations considerably. On 09 March 1977 President Jimmy Carter announced that US ground combat forces would be gradually pulled out of South Korea over a four-to-five year period. Twelve days later President Carter recalled Maj. Gen. John Singlaub, Chief of Staff, US Forces Korea, who had voiced objection to Carter's plan to phase out US troops in Korea. Singlaub was relieved of his Seoul post on May 21. During his visit to Seoul, on 25 July 1977 Secretary of Defense Harold Brown delivered a personal letter from President Jimmy Carter to President Park Chung Hee reaffirming America's defense commitment to South Korea. On 13 December 1977 a group of 219 American soldiers left for the US, the first American ground combat troops to pull out of Korea, and some 3,600 troops subsequently were withdrawn.

dyslexia,

You are correct in your recitation of the facts of the withdrawl of the 7th Infantry division from Korea. I'm glad to see no reference to a supposed threat by the Nixon administration to remove all our troops from that country because no such threat occurred or was even considered.

Please recall that in 1969 we were retrenching and concentrating our forces to achieve an honorable end to the Vietnam war (if that was possible). Nixon was raising the ante in Vietnam by mining the port of Haiphong and significantly escalating the bombing of the north - a project which had my full attention. There was the threat in the air of the application of even greater U.S. Army action in Vietnam and this action supported it. At the same time the Administration was planning the elimination of the draft and the transition to a professional army (having learned the folly of fighting what was, in effect, a colonial war with a conscript army).

Even your own recitation of the events in Korea points clearly to the beneficial effects of Nixon's action on South Korea's self-reliance and growing political maturity. With a much greater population and economic capability than their enemy in the North they should have been more able to fend for themselves than they then were. They had grown too dependent on our guarantees.

What occurred under the Carter Administration was of an entirely different character. Here our attempted action was motivated by a desire to escape our treaty obligations without visibly repudiating them. This properly unnerved the South Koreans. Jimmy Carter's unrealistic view of events and unsuitability as a national leader has since been well established.