Yes, I believe those countries would prefer if we stayed. Japan and S. Korea are particularly close to China and prefer we’re around to tamp down Chinese aggression. Germany is hoping we don’t withdraw our troops: https://m.dw.com/en/germany-welcomes-bid-to-halt-us-troop-wi...
Edit: This may offend some Europeans, but I think the world is better off with the US having bases in Europe and as a NATO member. Internecine squabbles in Europe don’t have a good track record over the past 100 or so years. One might even say the bases should be located where the trouble seems to start.
It's not that simple. American presence on the Korean peninsula makes reunification efforts overly complicated. By some estimates, reunification would grow the Korean economy to be the third largest in the world. It would also give Koreans access to Russian pipelines and a large border with China. When climate change opens up arctic trade routes and frozen arctic resources, Russia will be in the position to benefit the most (although Putin relies too heavily on his tsarist-Stalinist strain of conservatism to be able to exploit the economy as efficiently as liberals or perhaps Chinese communists might). As convenient as it is to have a powerful ally in the U.S., the U.S. is no longer in a position where it can dictate the behaviors of foreign nations as it once used to, especially regarding China. That's simply a reality that Koreans have had to come to terms with, despite Americans seeming to believe that things can just return to how they used to be half a century ago.
Remember that US troops were stationed in Berlin/ West Germany prior to German unification (i'll admit its not the exact same situation since the East German economy was relatively much stronger pre-unification than the current DPRK economy).
If you're suggesting that we should just let the DPRK take over ROK... well, I don't think any of the ROK inhabitants would like that.
The fact that the American military gets to decide what the Korean people want or what the reunification process will look like, is the single biggest factor hampering the peace process.
Now, with that being said is American military presence an issue for North Korea? Yea definitely. But if the U.S. withdrew troops it's not like Korea would all of a sudden be reunited. There's a laundry list of issues that would need to be resolved. American military presence is just North Korea's go-to excuse because they seek to divide the South Korean and American alliance.
If North Korea wanted to, they could just open the borders, stop starving their people, and all that jazz. Why do they need to do all of that crap? Because 25,000 Americans are in South Korea? Yea ok.
There are actually evil people in the world that don't live in America. Many of them live in North Korea, happily starving people, raping women, and executing people for no good reason.
Europe would do much better by defending itself on its own terms rather than perpetually hiding behind the Stars and Stripes. Hopefully Trump made it clear how dangerous that is.
For the same reason the US pushed Saddam out of Kuwait.
The 'world order' we grew up with seems like it's strong but it's not, it's very fragile.
US protection of S. Korea / Japan / Europe is like 'propping up key dominoes' in the chain.
Wars break out sometimes fairly easily, having bullwarks ostensibly keeps them from falling down.
Obviously there are many costs and risks.
That's because voicing such opinions, particularly to foreign strangers, is so far outside the established Overton window that South Koreans have been jailed for voicing them while working in the wrong occupation [0].
Case in point: Just look at the history of the No Gun Ri massacre during the Korea war [1], to this day neither the US nor South Korean government have really fully acknowledged or taken responsibility for what happened there, and just like with similar massacres of that kind: For the longest time survivors were persecuted for speaking out about what happened [2]. Decades of that breeds a culture of silent compliance.
There's also that whole politeness aspect: If you are a American, then no Japanese, Korean, or many Asian people in general will have small talk with you by opening a can of worms like "Your soldiers are/did occupying/bomb my country!", that would just be considered a very inappropriate thing to do.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Act_(South_K...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Gun_Ri_massacre
[2] https://thediplomat.com/2014/08/south-koreas-own-history-pro...
The problem is that Korea is a vassal state and there is no path to expelling occupying troops without conflict, which nobody wants.
If you ask more specific and nuanced questions which don't jump to such drastic solutions, then you are quite likely to get different responses. eg. "Should the Korean government command the Korean army?" or "Should Korean voters be able to decide on the relationship between ROK and DRPK?" / "What role should occupying powers (eg. Japan, China, US) play in that?" or "What should be done about US officials guilty of atrocities (eg. Gwangju massacre) and other human rights offences (there's quite a lot of them) in South Korea?"
> German Chancellor opposes US troop withdrawal plan
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/german-chancellor-opposes-us...
Without having a powerful army, Europe is just an order from being invaded by Russia.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_...
Of course raw numbers don't tell the whole story:
* https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2019/05/03/ru...
* https://warontherocks.com/2019/12/why-russian-military-expen...
Russia isn't even in the same league of spending power and the Soviet army of the past was way stronger.
While Russia spends a lot of money on their army ( % wise), they don't have the resources to renew it. What's left is a lot of old gear and some renewed one.
As a counter perspective, Ukraine would have made it's naval fleet completely unusable, as it needs to pass that country for getting anywhere.
And Europe ( in the last 30 years) came within missile range of Moscow, since the fall of the USSR.
The propaganda of Russia is mostly power related, but they are certainly not as powerful as they seem. And the cards don't look that great too.
A lot of their resources depend on oil/gas purchases from Europe and Europe is investing in alternative sources, while Russia can't raise the prices for their citizens/neighboring countries.
Eg. The pipeline Russia mostly invested in to Germany has been halted, because of Alexei Navalny: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/gas-pipeline-nord...
And last but not least, as a belgian citizen, i appreciate US presence and have no desire for foreign troops to withdraw. We all share ( mostly) the same/similar culture and perception.
> As a counter perspective, Ukraine would have made it's naval fleet completely unusable, as it needs to pass that country for getting anywhere.
They had open access to the Black Sea even without Crimea, I'm not sure how Ukraine could block them then or now?
btw pipeline isn't halted (so far): https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-ne...
For why Ukraine is important, i once read this: https://www.ft.com/content/1f749b24-9f8c-11e3-b6c7-00144feab...
Which was what influenced my judgement about Ukraine and Russia's fleet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Revolution_of_1956
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Spring
or those russian soldiers on holiday in the ukraine.
It's very strongly related to the geography of the region.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pac...
And here's the answer:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Czechoslovak_bo...
Check out all of the minor wars Poland was involved in between 1919 and 1938.
I wouldn't want to bet my freedom on that.
I know why they're doing it, it's just cynical for the locals.
Similar story for Korea, if you're a great power, wouldn't you move the possible battle like a few hundreds of kilometers away from your capital? You would.
It would still suck for the locals.
Chine will obviously not risk another Korean War, there's nothing for them to gain. If South Korea loses US support, yup, I'll take that bet in a heartbeat.
"Only" makes it sound weird considering it's in major parts these Okinawan's that have to pay the burden for the massive US presence [0].
While for most mainland Japanese it's as simple as "It doesn't affect me personally, it's an advantage for the whole nation, why not?"
And not to diminish it, but the rate in your article is quite small considering the populations involved. I wouldn't be surprised if the assault rates by military personnel stationed in the US was much different.
You are probably not in the majority there.
Do you want the Russians grabbing larger of E. Europe and seeing how far they can go with it?
At the end of the cold war it seemed as though maybe NATO might be past it's usefulness, but after a resurgent Russia, it seems more like it's going to take another 70-100 years probably.
Also, the 'rest of the world' is a more chaotic place, and it bodes well for Europeans to be playing well with American forces.
North Africa is a hot-spot and Europe (except UK/France in very limited form) doesn't have the ability to project power, even in the Libya intervention, it was backed by US AWACS, drones, and organization. It was kind of a folly, but there's no doubt that those interventions could be much more necessary in the future.
Politicians know this and there's no real popular urgency for the Americans to leave.
Both Norway and Sweden, the later a non-NATO country, are going more coordination with the Americans, not less.
Such will be the situation for a few decades.
If Germany ordered US troops out, they would leave. Even Iraq, barely a functioning country, did this, and the US left. But Germany, Japan and South Korea have not asked.
And you might say, "well, the US is functionally bribing them with the economic boost of stationing troops there". And... OK? That's the tradeoff. Germany is a wealthy country, and the populace can vote and make choices themselves.