Are US Troops Still Needed In South Korea?

Here is an interesting article by journalist Ben Hancock in The Diplomat about the US troop presence in South Korea that readers here at the ROK Drop should find of interest.  Hancock interviews a number of people about this issue to include, John Feffer:

‘It’s almost like a temperature gauge,’ says John Feffer, co-director of the Washington-based Foreign Policy in Focus and editor of The Future of US-Korean Relations. ‘When the United States reduces the number of troops [in South Korea] it has historically been an indication of displeasure.’

Today, Feffer says, this is part of the unease surrounding the transfer of OPCON, which dictates who has command over the 650,000 ROK troops in wartime. He describes it as ‘the tension between being abandoned by the United States and being suffocated by the United States.’

Given to the United Nations Command at the outset of the Korean War, OPCON was transferred to the US Combined Forces Command (CFC) in 1978, and is to return to South Korea in April 2012. The ROK regained peacetime control of its troops in 1994.

Conservatives in South Korea, like current President Lee Myung-bak and many members of his Grand National Party, are the most concerned about the OPCON transfer and what it might mean for US-ROK interoperability in the event of a North Korean attack. The fact that the decision on the transfer was made in October 2006–the same month the North conducted its first known nuclear test–likely adds to their fears.

But Feffer is dismissive. ‘This is a normal evolution in the alliance — frankly, the conservatives should be celebrating,’ he says. ‘Traditionally, conservatives are concerned about sovereignty, and this should be seen as a sovereignty issue.’  [The Diplomat]

This guy is a Korea expert?  First of all, Korea is already sovereign and Feffer seems to be perpetuating the myth that USFK is an occupying force in South Korea.  I guess using his analogy that the foreign troops stationed in the US are an occupying force that challenges the sovereignty of the US?  Secondly, every Korean not just conservatives take sovereignty very seriously especially in the wake of the Japanese Imperialism of World War II.  Sovereignty is hardly a conservative issue in South Korea.

Here is more from the article in regards to some more popular myths in South Korea:

‘Generally South Koreans think the US presence is needed,’ Cheong says, though he adds the 2000 summit between then South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il made people ‘rethink the necessity of US soldiers in Korea.’ He also says that feelings toward troops reflect overall sentiment towards the US government, and that attitudes have turned more positive since Barack Obama’s inauguration as US president.

And as with the controversy surrounding US military stationing in Japan’s Okinawa, Cheong acknowledges there’s still significant concern here about environmental degradation caused by bases and crimes committed by US soldiers.

As I have demonstrated US soldiers actually commit less crime per capita when compared to the Korean population, but when a GI crime happens it has been sensationalized by the media to create a perception of out of control GI crime.  This same phenomenon has occurred in regards to the USFK camp pollution issue.

The article also interviewed One Free Korea blogger Joshua Stanton about his views on the USFK troop presence as well:

Josh Stanton, a former Judge Advocate General defence attorney who served in Korea for four years and now lives in Washington, has similar memories. Though he volunteered for duty and extended twice, ‘I was definitely a rarity,’ he says. ‘Most of the people were there on one-year tours and they were counting the days.’

Stanton, who still monitors Korean affairs closely and runs the blog One Free Korea, says he enjoyed his time in Korea overall. ‘But I also tried really hard to learn Korean,’ something that’s not worth doing if you’re only going to be in the country for a year, he adds. Stanton also says South Koreans treated the US soldiers ‘at best like a public utility and at worst like a terrible occupier…that was terrible for our morale.’

Stanton left Korea in 2003, about the time Reeder says things really began to change. After the Highway 56 accident, the military put greater emphasis on training troops to be ‘a soldier and a diplomat,’ he recalls. In 2008, the first phase of tour normalization began.

Make sure to read the rest of the article here.

Instead of public utility I tend to use the term “a necessary evil” to describe many Koreans views towards USFK.  The anti-colonialism attitudes and the false perceptions among Koreans about USFK helps shapes attitudes towards USFK where many people would rather not have a US troop presence, but understand why they are needed on the peninsula.  The occupier stuff is usually coming from the hard left in Korea which many have North Korean ties and not what I consider mainstream views.

As far as the US military presence in Korea, I am a supporter of the Camp Humphreys relocation plan which will greatly reduce the USFK footprint in Korea.  I think eventually the use of having the 2nd Infantry Division located in Korea will need to be looked at because their use in a ground war in Korea would have little effect on the outcome considering the huge Army the South Koreans maintain.  It just seems the remaining 2ID units would be better used elsewhere. If 2ID was to redeploy, to maintain close ties with the ROK Army possibly Stryker units could rotate to Korea to do training exercises instead of keeping a permanently based presence?  The Air Force on the other hand I think continues to be an important asset to the defense of South Korea and I don’t see them moving anytime soon.

You can read more on this article over at the Marmot’s Hole and One Free Korea as well.

So what do readers think about Korean attitudes towards the US military presence in South Korea as well as the current troop deployments that make up USFK?