Brenna+and+Corinne

SOUTH KOREA- korean war, regionalism, and russia
 * The United States federal government should implement a phased withdrawal of its ground troops in the Republic of Korea.**


 * Korean War ADV ||
 * Korean War ADV ||

=Korean War Adv – 1ac=


 * Advantage 1 is Korean War**


 * The sinking of the South Korea’s ship makes conflict inevitable – retaliation will spark an escalatory war and failure to respond will only cause more North Korean provocations.**
 * Bandow, 10** – senior fellow at the Cato Institute and former special assistant to Reagan (4/18/10, Doug, “Let the Koreans Take Care of the Koreas,” [], JMP)

__It has been weeks since the South Korean ship Cheonan sank in the Yellow Sea__ near the disputed boundary between South and North Korea. As yet the cause is unknown--some government critics suspect a cover-up--but after raising the wreck South Korean officials said the explosion appeared to be external. Which implicates Pyongyang. If the cause was a mine, a North-South confrontation still could be avoided. The mine might have been left over from the Korean War. Or if of more modern vintage it could have broken loose from its moorings. If a torpedo was used, however, the threat of conflict rises. __The__ __R__epublic __o__f __K__orea __could not easily ignore a North Korean submarine stalking and sinking one of its vessels.__ Seoul has promised "a firm response," though, argues Han Sung-joo, a former ROK foreign minister and U.S. ambassador, "that doesn't mean a military reaction or an eye-for-eye response." In fact, the South did not retaliate after earlier provocations, such as the terrorist bombing of a South Korean airliner and assassination attempt against former president Chun Doo-hwan which killed 16 ROK officials. A military reprisal then could have triggered a full-scale war. __Responding in kind this time also could **spark a dangerous escalatory spiral**__ with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. However, Seoul has spent the last decade attempting to pacify the DPRK, providing aid, allowing investment, and hosting summits. __To do nothing would seem to be abject appeasement, undermining ROK credibility and **encouraging the North to act even more recklessly in the future**.__ If the word "firm" has any meaning, the South Korean government would have to do more than protest. Still, the decision, though difficult, shouldn't concern the U.S. The South has gone from an authoritarian economic wreck to a democratic economic powerhouse. With a vastly bigger and more sophisticated economy, larger population, and greater access to international markets and support than the North, Seoul long has been able to defend itself. Pyongyang retains a numerical military edge, but its weapons are old, troops are undertrained, and industrial base is shrinking. Thus, the South should be able to decide on the action that best advances its security. However, Seoul long chose to emphasize economic development over military preparedness. As a result, the ROK remains dependent on America. Some 27,000 U.S. personnel are stationed in the South. The U.S. retains formal command of all forces, American and South Korean, during a war. Seoul expects substantial U.S. air and naval support and ground reinforcement in the event of war. Which means that __ROK retaliation against the DPRK would draw the U.S. into any conflict.__ So Washington cannot help but pressure South Korean decision-makers to act in accord with American as well as ROK interests. In fact, that's what happened in 1983, when the U.S. insisted that Seoul not retaliate militarily after the bombing attack on President Chun. The current situation also means that __the destiny of America is essentially controlled by the North's Kim Jong-il. Ordering an attack on a South Korean ship could end up **forcing Washington to go to war.**__ Although the bilateral U.S.-South Korean defense treaty does not make American intervention automatic, __it is unimaginable that an American administration would stand aside in a conflict.__ This is a ludicrous position for both the U.S. and South Korea, six decades after Washington saved a far weaker ROK from a North Korean invasion in the midst of the Cold War. Neither country is well-served by Seoul's continuing defense dependency on America. Unfortunately, the policy incongruities only are likely to worsen. The ROK desires to wield increasing influence beyond its own shores. While relying on American military forces to defend its homeland, the South Korean government is crafting its navy for more distant contingencies and deploying ground personnel in the Middle East and Central Asia. Yet Seoul found that when the enemy struck at home, assuming the Cheonan was sunk by the North, the South Korean military was ill-prepared to defend its own personnel.

=Korean War Adv – 1ac=

[], JMP)
 * The status quo is __fundamentally different__ than the past – the chance of a major miscalculation and global escalation is possible now in __five different ways__**
 * Sanger, 10** (5/28/10, David E. Sanger, NY Times, “In the Koreas, Five Possible Ways to War,”

USUALLY, there is a familiar cycle to Korea crises. Like a street gang showing off its power to run amok in a well-heeled neighborhood, __the North Koreans launch a missile over Japan or set off a nuclear test or stage an attack__ — as strong evidence indicates they did in March, when a South Korean warship was torpedoed. Expressions of outrage follow. So do vows that this time, the North Koreans will pay a steep price. In time, though, the United States and North Korea’s neighbors — China, Japan, South Korea and Russia — remind one another that they have nothing to gain from a prolonged confrontation, much less a war. Gradually, sanctions get watered down. Negotiations reconvene. Soon the North hints it can be enticed or bribed into giving up a slice of its nuclear program. Eventually, the cycle repeats. __The White House betting is that the latest crisis, stemming from the March attack, will also abate without much escalation. But there is more than a tinge of doubt. The big risk__, as always, __is **what happens if the North Koreans make a major miscalculation.**__ (It wouldn’t be their first. Sixty years ago, Mr. Kim’s father, Kim Il-sung, thought the West wouldn’t fight when he invaded the South. The result was the Korean War.) What’s more, __the dynamic does feel **different from recent crises. The** South has a hardline government whose first instinct was to cut off aid to the North, not offer it new bribes. At the same time, the North is going through a murky, ill-understood succession crisis.__ And President Obama has made it clear he intends to break the old cycle. “We’re out of the inducements game,” one senior administration official, who would not discuss internal policy discussions on the record, said last week. “For 15 years at least, the North Koreans have been in the extortion business, and the U.S. has largely played along. That’s over.” That may change the North’s behavior, but it could backfire. __“There’s an argument that in these circumstances, the North Koreans may perceive that their **best strategy is to escalate**,” says__ Joel __Wit, a former State Department official who__ now runs a Web site that __follows North Korean diplomacy.__ __The encouraging thought is the history of cooler heads prevailing in every crisis since the Korean War.__ There was no retaliation after a 1968 raid on South Korea’s presidential palace; or when the North seized the American spy ship Pueblo days later; or in 1983 when much of the South Korean cabinet was killed in a bomb explosion in Rangoon, Burma; or in 1987 when a South Korean airliner was blown up by North Korean agents, killing all 115 people on board. So what if this time is different? __Here are five situations in which good sense might not prevail.__ An Incident at Sea Ever since an armistice ended the Korean War, the two sides have argued over — and from time to time skirmished over — the precise location of the “Northern Limit Line,” which divides their territorial waters. That was where the naval patrol ship Cheonan was sunk in March. So __first on the Obama administration’s list of concerns is another incident at sea that might turn into a **prolonged firefight**. Any heavy engagement could draw in the__ __U__nited __S__tates, South Korea’s chief ally, which is responsible for taking command if a major conflict breaks out. __What worries some officials is the chance of an **intelligence failure** in which the West misreads North Korea’s willingness and ability to escalate.__ The failure would not be unprecedented. Until a five-nation investigation concluded that the Cheonan had been torpedoed, South Korea and its allies did not think the North’s mini-submarine fleet was powerful enough to sink a fully armed South Korean warship. Shelling the DMZ American and South Korean war planners still work each day to refine how they would react if North Korea’s 1.2 million-man army poured over the Demilitarized Zone, 1950s-style. Few really expect that to happen — the South Koreans build and sell expensive condos between Seoul and the DMZ — but that doesn’t mean the planning is unjustified. __In one retaliatory measure__ last week, __South Korea threatened to resume propaganda broadcasts from loudspeakers at the DMZ.__ In past years, such blaring denunciations, of Kim Jong-il’s economic failures, were heard only by North Korean guards and the wildlife that now occupies the no-man’s land. Still, __the threat was enough to drive the North’s leadership to threaten to shell the loudspeakers. That, in turn, could lead to tit-for-tat exchanges of fire, and to a threat from the North to fire on Seoul__, which is within easy reach of mortars. If that happened, thousands could die in frenzied flight from the city, and investors in South Korea’s economy would almost certainly panic. American officials believe the South is now rethinking the wisdom of turning on the loudspeakers. A Power Struggle or Coup __Ask American intelligence analysts what could escalate this or a future crisis, and they name a 27-year-old Kim Jong-un__, the youngest of Kim Jong-il’s three sons, and the father’s choice to succeed him. Little is known about him, but his main qualifications for the job may be that he is considered less corrupt or despised than his two older brothers. __One senior American intelligence official described the succession crisis this way: “We **can’t think of a bigger nightmare** than a third generation of the Kim family” running the country with an iron hand__, throwing opponents into the country’s gulags, and mismanaging an economy that leaves millions starving.

It is possible that on the issue of succession, many in the North Korean elite, including in the military, agree with the American intelligence official. According to some reports, they view Kim Jong-un as untested, and perhaps unworthy. __“We’re seeing considerable signs of stress inside the North Korean system,”__ another official reported. __And that **raises the possibility of more provocations — and potential miscalculations — ahead.**__ One line of analysis is that the younger Kim has to put a few notches in his belt by ordering some attacks on the South, the way his father once built up a little credibility. __Another possibility is that internal fighting over the succession could bring wide-scale violence inside North Korea, tempting outside powers to intervene to stop the bloodshed.__ Curiously, when Kim Jong-il took the train to China a few weeks ago, his heir apparent did not travel with him. Some experts read that as a sign that the Kim dynasty might fear a coup if both were out of the country — or that it might not be wise to put father and son on the same track at the same time, because accidents do happen. An Internal Collapse __America’s most enduring North Korea strategy isn’t a strategy at all; it’s a prayer for the country’s collapse.__ Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy hoped for it. Dick Cheney tried to speed it. The regime has survived them all. But __could the North collapse in the midst of the power struggle? Sure.__ And that is the one scenario that most terrifies the Chinese. It also explains why they keep pumping money into a neighbor they can barely stand. __For China, a collapse would mean a flood of millions of hungry refugees__ (who couldn’t flee south; there they are blocked by the minefield of the DMZ); __it would also mean the possibility of having South Korea’s military, and its American allies, nervously contending with the Chinese over who would occupy the territory of a fallen regime in order to stabilize the territory__. China is deeply interested in North Korea’s minerals; the South Koreans may be as interested in North Korea’s small nuclear arsenal. A Nuclear Provocation __With tensions high, American spy satellites are looking for evidence that the North Koreans are getting ready to test another nuclear weapon__ — just as they did in 2006 and 2009 — or shoot off some more long-range missiles. It is a sure way to grab headlines and rattle the neighborhood. In the past, such tests have ratcheted up tension, and could do so again. But they are not the Obama administration’s biggest worry. As one of Mr. Obama’s top aides said months ago, there is reason to hope that the North will shoot off “a nuclear test every week,” since they are thought to have enough fuel for only eight to twelve. __Far more worrisome would be a decision by Pyongyang to export its nuclear technology and a failure by Americans to notice.__ For years, American intelligence agencies missed evidence that the North was building a reactor in the Syrian desert, near the Iraq border. The Israelis found it, and wiped it out in an air attack in 2007. Now, the search is on to find out if other countries are buying up North Korean technology or, worse yet, bomb fuel. (There are worries about Myanmar.) In short, __the biggest worry is that North Korea could decide that teaching others how to build nuclear weapons would be the fastest, stealthiest way to defy a new American president__ who has declared that stopping proliferation is Job No. 1. __It is unclear whether the American intelligence community would pick up the signals that it missed in Syria. And if it did, **a crisis might not be contained in the Korean Peninsula; it could spread to the Middle East or Southeast Asia, or wherever else North Korea found its customers.**__

=Korean War Adv – 1ac=


 * U.S. presence makes provocations inevitable and guarantees our draw in**
 * Bandow, 10** – Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and former Special Assistant to Reagan (5/3/10, Doug, “Taming Pyongyang,” [], JMP)

Suspicions continue to mount that North Korea torpedoed the Cheonan, a South Korean corvette which sank more than a month ago in the Yellow Sea to the west of the Korean peninsula. Policy makers in both Seoul and Washington are pondering how to respond. __The potential__, even if small, __of renewed conflict on the peninsula demonstrates that today’s status quo is unsatisfactory for all of the North’s neighbors.__ The Korean War ended in an armistice nearly six decades ago. No peace treaty was ever signed; over the years the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea committed numerous acts of war, most dramatically attempting to assassinate South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan during a visit to Burma and seizing the U.S. intelligence ship Pueblo. Conflict was avoided because the United States, long the senior partner to the Republic of Korea in their military alliance, refused to risk igniting a new conflict. __In recent years the DPRK’s conduct has remained predictably belligerent but constrained__: fiery threats, diplomatic walk-outs, policy reversals, and unreasonable demands have mixed with occasional cooperative gestures as Washington and Seoul attempted to dissuade the North from developing nuclear weapons. __North Korean relations **recently have been in a down cycle.** Pyongyang has walked out of the__ long-running __Six Party talks__ and failed in its attempt to engage Washington. South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has ended the ROK’s “Sunshine Policy,” which essentially entailed shipping money and tourists north irrespective of the DPRK’s conduct, causing North Korea to downgrade economic and diplomatic contacts and even recently confiscate South Korean investments. Japan’s relations with the North remain stalled over the lack of accounting over the kidnapping of Japanese citizens years ago. __Still, for at least two decades Pyongyang had eschewed military action.__ Shots were fired between South and North Korean ships last November near the disputed boundary in the Yellow Sea, but no harm was done. __Brinkmanship was the DPRK’s standard diplomatic strategy. Triggering a new war was not. Why the North would sink a South Korean vessel is a matter of speculation.__ More critical is the response. Now what? The issue is most pressing in Seoul. South Korean officials say the investigation continues as they seek definitive evidence that a torpedo sunk the Cheonan. The tragedy would be no less if the cause was a mine, but the latter could be dismissed as an unfortunate occurrence rather than deliberate attack. If the sinking was intentional, however, the ROK must respond. To do nothing would reward the North and encourage additional irresponsible action. President Lee Myung-bak has said: “I’m very committed to responding in a firm manner if need be.” One South Korean diplomat suggested to me that __the South will seek Security Council condemnation of the DPRK.__ This is in line with President Lee’s promise “to cooperate with the international community in taking necessary measures when the results are out.” But even if Seoul won Chinese support for a UN resolution, __the ROK would have to take bilateral measures. That certainly would end investment and aid, likely would prevent negotiations and **possibly would entail military retaliation**__**.** __The result__ not only __would__ mean a serious and prolonged worsening of bilateral relations and increase in bilateral tensions, but could __end any chance__—admittedly today very slim—__of reversing North Korean nuclear development.__ Moreover, a military strike would entail a chance of war. **__Tit-for-tat retaliation might spiral out of control.__** The potential consequences are horrifying. __The ROK nevertheless might be willing to take the risk. Not Washington.__ The United States is cooperating in the investigation and reportedly urging the Lee government to wait for proof before acting. But even if the DPRK is culpable, the last thing the Obama administration wants is another war. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last month: “I hope that there is no talk of war, there is no action or miscalculation that could provoke a response that might lead to conflict.” From America’s standpoint, avoiding a potentially bloody war on the Korean peninsula while heavily involved in Afghanistan and still tied down in Iraq is far more important than South Korean concerns over justice and credibility. The People’s Republic of __China__ also __would be a big loser in any war: refugees would and conflict could spill over the Yalu.__ The North Korean state likely would disappear, leaving a united Korea allied with America and hosting U.S. troops near China’s border. Beijing’s international reputation would suffer as its policy of aiding the North was fully and dramatically discredited. __Japan__ would be less vulnerable to the consequences of war but __could be the target of North Korean attempts to strike out.__ Undoubtedly, Tokyo also would be asked to contribute to the peninsula’s reconstruction. Of course, North Korea and its people would suffer the most. The former would cease to exist. That would be an international good, but **__millions of North Koreans likely would die__** or otherwise suffer along the way. War would be a tragic end to decades of hardship and isolation. What to do? Seoul needs some degree of certainty before acting. So long as the sinking might have been caused by a mine, the ROK cannot act decisively. If a torpedo attack is the most likely cause, however, winning Security Council backing would be a useful step. Then finding the right level of response, including possibly closing the Kaesong industrial park in the North or targeting a North Korean vessel for destruction, would be necessary. If it chooses the latter, the ROK would need Washington’s backing and China’s understanding. Finally, a lot of people in several countries would have to cross their fingers and say some prayers. In any case, the six-party talks would seem kaput. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said the Obama administration remained committed to the negotiations despite the sinking, stating that “I wouldn’t necessarily link those directly.” Yet __the likelihood that Pyongyang would yield its nuclear weapons while sinking South Korean vessels seems **vanishingly small.** Even a minimal possibility of a negotiated settlement should be pursued, but at some point **the effort simply looks foolish.**__ That’s the short-term. Two longer-term issues require attention, however the current controversy is resolved. First, __the__ __U__nited __S__tates __and ROK must reconsider their alliance relationship__. Even on the issue of defending against the DPRK their interests differ: Seoul must satiate an angry public desiring vengeance as well as preserve its credibility in confronting the North. **__America must avoid another war at most any cost.__** __Given the South’s level of development, it makes no sense for its defense decisions to be subject to Washington’s veto. Nor does it make any sense for the__ __U__nited __S__tates __to **risk being drawn into a war** as a result of acts between other nations. These **bilateral differences are only likely to grow**, especially if the relationship between America and China grows more contentious.__ __Then South Korea could find itself risking involvement in Washington’s war.__ Also involved is the ROK’s self-respect. In two years the U.S. plans on devolving operational control of the combined forces to South Korea. Yet some South Koreans fear their nation won’t be ready to lead its own defense. That Washington took military command in underdeveloped, impoverished South Korea in 1950 is understandable. To argue that America must continue doing so in 2010 is bizarre.

**Even if escalation is not likely now high tensions uniquely risk miscalculation** **AFP, 10** (5/27/10, Agence France Presse, “Koreas On Collision Course, Big Powers Must Step In: Experts”, http://www.lexisnexis.com)

Daniel Pinkston, Seoul-based analyst with the International Crisis Group, said the situation is "pretty serious but I still think the likelihood of escalation into a full-scale war is low". He expects the chill to last for **months or years.** And there was **always the possibility of "misperception or miscalculation"** along the world's most heavily fortified border -- **especially now that communication links have been cut.** "If either side believed the other was preparing some military attack, then they might feel compelled to strike first," Pinkston said. The trigger for any clash could come if and when the South switches on the loudspeakers it is now reinstalling to broadcasts propaganda across the border, six years after they went silent. Yang said the North is "very likely" to carry out its threat to open fire on the speakers since it sees propaganda as a serious threat to the regime. "Information from the South can shock the North's soldiers and people by divulging a whopping gap in living conditions between the two Koreas, and the private life of leader Kim Jong-Il," Yang said.


 * Also, North Korean aggression and nuclearization will cause intentional, miscalculated, or accidental nuclear conflict – even a limited nuclear war causes rapid cooling and ozone disruption, collapses the economy, and spills over to other hot spots**
 * Hayes & Hamel-Green, 10** – *Executive Director of the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainable Development, AND ** Executive Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Education and Human Development act Victoria University (1/5/10, Executive Dean at Victoria, “The Path Not Taken, the Way Still Open: Denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia,” [])

The international community is increasingly aware that cooperative diplomacy is the most productive way to tackle the multiple, interconnected global challenges facing humanity, not least of which is the increasing proliferation of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. __Korea and Northeast Asia are instances where risks of nuclear proliferation and actual nuclear use arguably have increased in recent years.__ This negative trend is a product of continued US nuclear threat projection against the DPRK as part of a general program of coercive diplomacy in this region, North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme, the breakdown in the Chinese-hosted Six Party Talks towards the end of the Bush Administration, regional concerns over China’s increasing military power, and concerns within some quarters in regional states (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan) about whether US extended deterrence (“nuclear umbrella”) afforded under bilateral security treaties can be relied upon for protection. __The consequences of failing to address the proliferation threat posed by the North Korea developments, and related political and economic issues, are serious__, not only for the Northeast Asian region but __for the whole international community.__ At worst, __there is the **possibility of nuclear attack**__1, __whether by **intention, miscalculation, or merely accident**, leading to the resumption of Korean War hostilities.__ On the Korean Peninsula itself, key population centres are well within short or medium range missiles. The whole of Japan is likely to come within North Korean missile range. Pyongyang has a population of over 2 million, Seoul (close to the North Korean border) 11 million, and Tokyo over 20 million. **__Even a limited nuclear exchange would result in a holocaust of unprecedented proportions.__** But the catastrophe within the region would not be the only outcome. New research indicates that even a limited nuclear war in the region would rearrange our global climate far more quickly than global warming. Westberg draws attention to new studies modelling the effects of even a limited nuclear exchange involving approximately 100 Hiroshima-sized 15 kt bombs2 (by comparison it should be noted that the United States currently deploys warheads in the range 100 to 477 kt, that is, individual warheads equivalent in yield to a range of 6 to 32 Hiroshimas).__The studies indicate that the soot from the fires produced would lead to a decrease in global temperature by 1.25 degrees__ Celsius for a period of 6-8 years.3 In Westberg’s view: That is not global winter, but __the nuclear darkness will cause a deeper drop in temperature than at any time during the last 1000 years.__ The temperature over the continents would decrease substantially more than the global average. A decrease in rainfall over the continents would also follow…__The period of nuclear darkness will cause much greater decrease in grain production than 5% and it will continue for many years...hundreds of millions of people will die from hunger__…To make matters even worse, __such amounts of smoke injected into the stratosphere would cause a huge reduction in the Earth’s protective ozone.__4 These, of course, are not the only consequences. __Reactors might also be targeted, causing further mayhem and downwind radiation effects, superimposed on a smoking, radiating ruin left by nuclear next-use__. Millions of refugees would flee the affected regions. __The direct impacts, and the follow-on impacts on the global economy via ecological and food insecurity, could **make the present global financial crisis pale by comparison**.__ How the great powers, especially the nuclear weapons states respond to such a crisis, and in particular, whether nuclear weapons are used in response to nuclear first-use, could make or break the global non proliferation and disarmament regimes. __There could be many unanticipated impacts on regional and global security relationships__5, __with **subsequent nuclear breakout** and geopolitical turbulence, including possible loss-of-control over fissile material or warheads in the chaos of nuclear war, and **aftermath chain-reaction affects involving other potential proliferant states.**__ The Korean nuclear proliferation issue is not just a regional threat but a global one that warrants priority consideration from the international community.


 * __Korean War Adv – 1ac__**


 * Withdrawing __ground troops__ solves – stops North Korea from probing U.S. weakness to draw our forces into a wider conflict. Air and naval installations will maintain power projection capabilities.**
 * Stanton, 10** – U.S. Army Judge Advocate in Korea from 98-02 and practicing attorney in Washington, D.C. (4/12/10, Joshua, The New Ledger, “It's Time for the U.S. Army to Leave Korea,” [], JMP)

Proceeding against the advice of my cardiologist, I must concede that for once, Ron Paul is actually on to something. __The ground component of U.S. Forces Korea__, which costs U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars a year to maintain, __is an__ equally __unaffordable political liability on the South Korean street. We should withdraw it.__ Every Saturday night off-post brawl is a headline in the muck-raking Korean press, for which the American soldier is inevitably blamed, and for which angry mobs perpetually demand renegotiations of the Status of Force Agreement to give Korea’s not-even-remotely-fair judicial system more jurisdiction over American soldiers. __The South Korean people do not appreciate__ the security __our soldiers__ provide. The way some of them treat our soldiers ought to be a national scandal. Many off-post businesses don’t even let Americans through their front doors. **__The degree of anti-Americanism in South Korea is sufficient to be a significant force protection issue in the event of hostilities.__** South Korea does not have our back. South Korea made much of the fact that it sent 3,000 soldiers to Iraq, where they sat behind concrete barriers in a secure Kurdish area of Iraq, protected by peshmerga, making no military contribution and taking no combat casualties. Their contribution to the effort in Afghanistan has been negligible, which is more than can be said of their contribution to the Taliban (previous President Roh Moo Hyun reportedly paid them a ransom of up to $20 million in 2007 to free South Korean hostages who took it upon themselves to charter a shiny new bus to bring Christianity to Kandahar). South Korea has been an equally unsteady ally against China. __The American security blanket has fostered a state of national adolescence by the South Korean public.__ Too many of them (some polls suggest most) see America as a barrier to reunification with their ethnic kindred in the North. Maybe nothing short of a North Korean attack on the South can encourage more sober thinking by South Koreans about their own security, but I suspect a greater sense of self-reliance and even vulnerability might. During my service in Korea, as U.S. taxpayers subsidized South Korea’s defense, South Korea subsidized Kim Jong Il’s potential offense with billions of dollars in hard currency that sustained the very threat against which we were ostensibly helping to defend. South Korea never made North Korea’s disarmament a condition of this aid. Instead, that aid effectively undermined U.S. and U.N. sanctions meant to force North Korea to disarm. What does South Korea have to show for this colossal outlay now. __Because South Korea, now__ one the world’s wealthiest nations, __expects__ up to 600,000 __American soldiers to__ arrive __protect it__ from any security contingency, __successive South Korean governments actually cut their nation’s defense rather than modernizing it and building an effective independent defense.__ Consequently, South Korea still has a 1970-vintage force structure, designed around a 1970-vintage threat, equipped with 1970-vintage weapons. This is partly the legacy of ten years of leftist administrations, but it’s also the legacy of military welfare that allowed South Korea to defer upgrading its equipment, building a professional volunteer army, and organizing an effective reserve force to deal with security contingencies. Worst of all, __South Korea diverted billions of dollars that should have been spent on modernizing its military into regime-sustaining aid to Kim Jong Il__, to be used, as far as anyone knows, for nukes, missiles, artillery, and pretty much everything but infant formula. To this day, South Korea continues to resist accepting operational control over its own forces in the event of war. The U.S. Army presence in Korea is an anachronism, defending against the extinct threat of a conventional North Korean invasion. __The far greater danger is that if Kim Jong Il assesses our current president as weak, he will choose more limited or less conventional means to strike at our soldiers and their families.__ Given the reported presence of Taliban operatives in Seoul, he might even plausibly deny responsibility for an attack. Thus, while I don’t go so far as to accept the Princess Bride Doctrine (”never get involved in a land war in Asia”), __I do not believe it is wise for us to have our forces within easy artillery range of Kim Jong Il, such that he may freely choose the time, place, and manner of our involvement__ I offer two qualifications here. First, __this is not to suggest that we unilaterally abrogate the alliance with South Korea. **Our air and naval installations in Korea provide useful power-projection capability** and are far more secure__, ironically, than our many scattered and isolated Army posts. I can imagine any number of contingencies for which we’d want to have the ability to move people and supplies into South Korea in a hurry. Second, this is not to suggest that Ron Paul is not an anti-Semitic crypto-racist advocate of a thoughtlessly escapist foreign policy, and broadly speaking, an imbecile. This is just one occasion in which he inadvertently, in the fashion of a stopped clock, aligns with the correct result.


 * __Korean War Adv – 1ac__**


 * U.S. presence is useless to deter North Korea – withdrawal will motivate South Korea and China to stabilize and de-nuclearize the peninsula**
 * Erickson, 10** – Executive Director of CenterMovement.org (5/6/10, Stephen, “End the Cold War in Korea: Bring American Troops Home Before it’s Too Late,” [], JMP)

On the night of March 26 the South Korean 1,200-ton warship Cheonan patrolled the boundary waters between North and South Korea. At 10:45 an explosion near the bow rocked the vessel and sank the Cheonan, taking the lives of 46 crew members with it. Although the investigation is still ongoing, the South Korean Defense Minister has declared that a torpedo is the likeliest source of the blast. __North Korea appears to have destroyed the South Korean warship.__ Normally such an unprovoked attack would start a war, but the Korean peninsula is not a normal place. The Koreans, with their strong sense of nationalism, remain divided along the 38th parallel, with a 2.5 mile “demilitarized zone” between them. Meanwhile approximately 28,000 US troops still help guard the border. An armistice formally ended hostilities in Korea in 1953, but officially the war never ended. No peace treaty was ever signed. One year ago, the North formally and ominously withdrew from the armistice. North Korea, a tiny country with the world’s 4th largest standing army, is the most militarized society in the world. It has a standing army of 1.2 million soldiers, and a peasant militia with as many as 4 million reserves. Some 13,000 artillery pieces, dug into the hills within range of the South Korean capital of Seoul, are poised to obliterate the South’s most important city upon “The Dear Leader’s” command. Some estimates suggest that as many as one million South Koreans could die under such an assault. Then there’s the matter of North Korea’s several nuclear weapons. __South Korea__, officially the “Republic of Korea,” __has about half as many soldiers as the North, but they are **better trained and far better equipped.**__ South Korea is wealthy and technologically advanced. North Korea has half the population and 1/30th the economy of the South. While the rulers of the North live lavishly, famine killed a million people in the 1990s, and the United Nation’s World Food Program is worried that this year may witness the worst food shortages since then. Starving people can be dangerous people. Historically North Korea uses its military, its only strength, as leverage to obtain outside assistance. South Korea today might well be able to ultimately defend itself against the North, but the bloodshed would be horrific. A key factor in any future conflict is Seoul’s location so near the North. Experts suggest (See “Is Kim Jong-il Planning to Occupy Seoul?” ) that a recently revised North Korean military strategy consists of swiftly taking Seoul and holding the city’s millions of people as hostages. All of this begs a couple of important questions. How many more South Korean ships can be torpedoed before the South retaliates, surely starting a larger war? And, what are 28,000 American troops doing in the middle of this Korean powder keg? As the sinking of the Cheonan clearly indicates, the sparks are already flying. __The permanent US military deployment__ in South Korea __is a Cold War anachronism. There is **absolutely no reason** that a nation as advanced and prosperous as South Korea cannot defend itself from its pathetically backward northern brothers and sisters.__ A well-known night-time satellite image taken from space shows a brilliant South and a North languishing in the Dark Ages. The US presence creates political dysfunction while it minimally protects South Korea. __US soldiers on South Korean soil breed resentment.__ Thousands of nationalist South Korean students regularly take to the streets to protest the Americans soldiers in their country and to call for unification between North and South. South Korean and US government policies are often awkwardly out of step with each other, with America often having the far more hawkish posture, as it did during the W. Bush years. __American security guarantees have perhaps sometimes led the government of the South to engage in policies of inappropriate appeasement toward the North.__ __The threat of South Korea investing in nuclear weapons to counter the North might,__ for example, __finally **persuade China to put sufficient pressure of North Korea.** A South Korea determined to match North Korean nuclear weapons development might paradoxically **further the goal of a nuclear-free Korean peninsula.**__ __Most crucially__, from an American point of view, __the US Army is stretched too thin to play much of a role in protecting South Korea.__ As things stand, __American soldiers are little more than targets for North Korean artillery and missiles. A defense of Seoul,__ its re-conquest, __and forcible regime change in the North are all beyond US military capabilities at this time, given its commitments elsewhere.__ US participation on the ground in a new Korean War would also stress the US federal budget beyond the breaking point. The United States never properly created a new foreign and defense policy when the Cold War ended. Instead, it has generally maintained its Cold War military posture, with bases and commitments strewn throughout the globe, even as new challenges since 911 have called American forces to new missions. __The US military presence in Korea is a Cold War artifact that needs to be brought home before it’s too late.__


 * Korean War is the most likely scenario – tensions are high and all-out war is possible**
 * Powell 10** (**5/26/10** Bill Powell works for Time Magizine. “War on the Korean Peninsula: Thinking the Unthinkable.” http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1991928,00.html)

__"A symphony of death." That's the chilling phrase that Kurt Campbell, who is now Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs in the Obama Administration, once used to describe the likely outcome of any military encounter on the Korean peninsula between the U.S., its ally South Korea and their mutual enemy across the 38th parallel in the North__. The possibility of war breaking out once again in Korea is so unthinkable that a lot of people in various military establishments — the Pentagon, South Korea's armed forces and China's People's Liberation Army — actually spend a lot of time thinking about it. The truce between North and South has lasted for 57 years, but a peace treaty has never been signed, and now, in the wake of the North's attack on a South Korean naval vessel — __and the South's formal accusation that the //Cheonan// was sunk by a North Korean torpedo — **tensions are at their highest level since 1994**, when North Korea threatened to turn Seoul into a "sea of fire." __Seoul has already made it clear that it will not seek military retaliation, and Washington and Beijing have said all the right things about trying to ensure that "cooler heads" prevail, as China's State Councilor, Dai Bingguo, said in talks with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Beijing on Tuesday. __But all concerned parties understand that at a moment of high tension, the possibility of hot war breaking out is not negligible__. (See TIME's photo-essay "The Iconography of Kim Jong Il.") How might a shooting war start? __Defense analysts and military sources in Seoul and Washington agree that an outright, all-out attack by either side is unlikely. Even a nuclear armed North, a Seoul-based defense analyst says, "would not risk an all-out war because it would be the end of the regime. Period, full sto__p." **__But there are ways in which smaller skirmishes could break out, and if they aren't contained, they could conceivably lead to disaster. Here are three that are uppermost in defense planners' minds:__** //The West Sea Redux// The site of the crisis — what Koreans call the West Sea (the Yellow Sea to everyone else) — remains the most obvious danger zone. Prior to the March 26 sinking of the //Cheonan//, there had been three separate naval clashes in the past decade along the so-called Northern Limit Line. The NLL is the de facto boundary that was drawn in 1953 by the head of U.N. forces at the end of the Korean War. Some say the North has never recognized it; others claim that it implicitly did in a 1992 non-aggression pact signed with the South. With the sinking of the //Cheonan// — an obvious violation of the 1953 armistice — the West Sea is obviously the most sensitive flash point. After the sinking, South Korean President Lee Myung Bak said that North Korean commercial ships — including fishing vessels that hunt for blue crab in the summer months in the South's waters — could no longer venture below the NLL. Pyongyang responded by saying that, likewise, no ships from the South would be welcome north of the NLL. __That means all sea-borne traffic from both sides needs to steer clear of the de facto border, lest "they get blown out of the water," says a Western diplomat in Seoul. "That by definition, under these circumstances, **is a fraught situation, given that both sides are on a hair trigger now**.__" (See pictures of the rise of Kim Jong Il.) //Loudspeakers at the DMZ// To much of the rest of the post–Cold War world, the idea seems slightly farcical: setting up big speakers on the southern side of the demilitarized zone and broadcasting — loudly — news and anti–North Korean propaganda across the border. To some it conjures up images straight out of //Monty Python and the Holy Grail// ("I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries"). But it's no joke. Cheong Seong-chang, senior fellow at the Sejong Institute, a think tank in Seoul, believes that South Korea's plan to restart these broadcasts will likely infuriate North Korea. " Their military is already in a high state of emotion," Cheong says. And indeed, North Korea has already said publicly that it will shoot at any speakers broadcasting from the southern side of the DMZ **__. The defense analyst in Seoul says that if Pyongyang were to follow through, it would be "a serious act of aggression, and South Korea must counter it."__** Tit for Tat Getting Out of Hand __Shots fired across the DMZ at a time of such tension is a potential disaster waiting to happen__. __A senior U.S. diplomat concedes that these sorts of incidents "**are not at all unlikely to occur**" over the next weeks and months__. "**__The key is not letting them escalate.__** __Our side understands acutely the dangers of things getting out of hand__." Complicating the situation is that, according to a __former senior military official in Seoul, the South Korean government will in all likelihood respond in kind to any future military attack from the North. "__We will not do anything in response to the //Cheonan// [militarily], but I do not expect that that would be the case in any future incidents," says the former official__.__ (See pictures of North Koreans at the polls.) The question is, __Does North Korea know that, and if not, how to communciate the message? There is no hot line between Seoul and Pyongyang__, __and North Korea announced on Wednesday that it was shutting down a phone line run by the Red Cross in Panmunjom, the so-called truce village__ set up by the 1953 armistice. __The danger here is obvious__. The only open lines of communication are two that are affiliated with the train links between the Koreas (including a route to the Kaesong Industrial Zone, which the North has threatened to close). The only way now to get a message to the North about what the South will not tolerate going forward may be via the Chinese. Conveniently, China's Prime Minister, Wen Jiabao, will head to Seoul on Friday for talks with Lee. North Korea will dominate that discussion. Let's hope they figure out how to keep Pyongyang in the loop.


 * Advantage 2 is Regionalism**


 * U.S. alliance relationships are unsustainable – Asian powers should develop a regional security strategy that __does not__ rely on the U.S. – solves WMD terrorism, tames China, prevents Sino-Japan conflict, Japan imperialism, solve resource conflicts and stop major power domination**
 * Francis, 06** – former Australian Ambassador to Croatia and fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University from 05-06 (Fall 2006, Neil, Harvard International Review, “For an East Asian Union: Rethinking Asia's Cold War Alliances,” [], JMP)

At the conclusion of the Second World War, the United States established bilateral military alliances in the Asia-Pacific intended to contain Soviet and Chinese communist expansion in the region. __US security strategy now focuses largely on combating terrorism and denying weapons of mass destruction to so-called rogue states. It is a strategy that cannot be implemented with geographic mutual defense treaties formed to address conventional military threats.__ Furthermore, the United States has demonstrated in Afghanistan and Iraq that it is prepared to pursue its global security interests unilaterally, even at the risk of its political relations with traditional alliance partners. __What happened over Iraq between the__ __U__nited __S__tates __and its European allies could equally happen between the__ __U__nited __S__tates __and its Asian allies over__ Taiwan or __North Korea with serious consequences for the interests of countries in that region. East Asian powers need to develop a collective security strategy for the region that **does not rely** on the__ __U__nited __S__tates’ __participation.__ Prudence suggests that East Asian countries need to take the opportunity offered by the recently inaugurated East Asian Summit (EAS) to begin the process of developing an East Asian community as the first step toward the realization of an East Asian Union. This will occur only if led by a strong, proactive Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). China is now the world’s second-largest economy, almost two-thirds as large as the United States in terms of domestic purchasing power. In 2005 China overtook Japan to become the world’s third-largest exporter of goods and services. In 2004 it was the third-largest trading partner with ASEAN; the second largest with Japan, Australia, and India; and the largest with the Republic of Korea. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has estimated that in 2004, in purchasing power parity dollar terms, China’s military expenditure was US$161.1 billion, the second highest in the world. The Pentagon has estimated that in 2005 China’s military expenditure was two to three times larger than its official figure of US$29.9 billion. China’s growing economic and military strength along with the United States’ preoccupation with its new security agenda has made some East Asian countries increasingly apprehensive. __Particularly since September 11, bilateral military alliances have become less relevant to US security interests, and the__ __U__nited __S__tates __will likely reduce its military presence in the East Asian region.__ Parts of Asia believe that Chinese hegemonic aspirations for East Asia could emerge if the United States were to disengage from the region. Fear of China and the possibility that it harbors hegemonic aspirations were among the factors that led to the creation of ASEAN in 1967 and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in 1993. Engaging China in an East Asian union in the future would ensure it will pay a high price in loss of trade and investment if it acts against the interests of the union’s other members. Prospects for an East Asian Community In December 2005 ASEAN hosted an inaugural East Asian Summit in Kuala Lumpur. The summit involved the 10 ASEAN countries; the ASEAN+3 countries of China, Japan, and South Korea; as well as Australia, New Zealand, and India. The summit declaration of December 14, 2005, described the meeting as a forum for “dialogue on broad strategic, political and economic issues of common interest and concern with the aim of promoting peace, stability and economic prosperity in East Asia.” The declaration also noted that the summit could “play a significant role in community building in this region.” ASEAN would work “in partnership with the other participants of the East Asian Summit,” but ASEAN was to retain leadership, preventing control of East Asian community building by either the ASEAN+3 countries, which China could dominate, or the 16 EAS countries, which some felt could steer the EAS toward what would be an unwelcome “Western” agenda. It remains to be seen whether an East Asian community can emerge under ASEAN leadership. ASEAN is an association: it is not a strong regional institution with common interests and objectives. It reflects the diversity of its membership, which has traditionally preferred an unstructured organization, a consensus approach to decision making, and avoidance of controversial issues or intervention in the affairs of its members. The ASEAN Way under Challenge ASEAN’s ways, however, may be changing. Since the late 1990s ASEAN’s non-intervention principle has come under challenge. In 1997 ASEAN was faced with an Asian economic crisis triggered by currency speculators and in 1997 to 1998 with a regional pollution haze problem caused by illegal land-clearance fires in Indonesia. ASEAN’s ineffectiveness in these crises brought internal scrutiny to bear on ASEAN’s policy of non-intervention in domestic affairs. As a result, since 1999 ASEAN foreign ministers have discussed these and other transnational problems—illegal migration, terrorism, and the drug trade—that call for collective responses. They have also considered allowing ASEAN to oversee electoral and governance processes within member states. In 1999 a number of ASEAN countries defied the long-standing ASEAN position that East Timor was an internal matter for Indonesia and sent peace-keeping forces to the island to help quell the violence instigated there by anti-independence militia backed by Indonesian armed forces. In 2005 ASEAN placed public pressure on the government of Myanmar to allow an ASEAN delegation to visit Myanmar and assess what progress had been made in human rights and democratization. With the aid of the United States and European Union, ASEAN also persuaded Myanmar to relinquish its role as ASEAN chair. ASEAN’s actions in the 1990s suggest increased sensitivity to the negative effects of individual member nations on the organization’s international standing as well as the beginning of openness toward intervention in the domestic affairs of its members. Toward Realization At its December 2005 summit, ASEAN agreed to institute an ASEAN Charter by 2020 to provide what Malaysian Prime Minister Badawi has called a “mini-constitution,” a document that will establish an institutional framework for ASEAN as well as a legal identity recognized by the United Nations. The older members—Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand—want ASEAN to become something more than an association. Institutionally strong and mostly democratic, they might more readily welcome a rules-governed organization similar to the European Union. Others with institutionally weak, authoritarian governments, such as Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam, are wary of placing their domestic policies under greater international scrutiny and favor the status quo. If the former nations prevail it will augur well for the realization of an East Asian community with the potential to evolve into an East Asian Union. __An East Asian community__ composed of the 16 EAS participants would represent more than 60 percent of the world’s population and possess a combined GDP greater than the European Union. It __could provide significantly increased trade benefits to its members, help dampen Sino-Japanese rivalry, ease the present tensions in the region over Japan’s Pacific War, encourage more cooperative attitudes toward the issue of natural resource exploitation in East Asia, promote engagement over containment, and **prevent domination of the region by any major power**.__ The determining factor will be ASEAN’s ability to provide the leadership necessary to create a strong, independent East Asian Union.

**Regionalism is currently halfhearted – only a clear sign of U.S. withdrawal can motivate sustainable regional security cooperation** **Carpenter and Bandow 4 - *** Vice President of Defense and Foreign Studies at the Cato Institute, AND ** Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute **(**Ted Galen Carpenter, 12/2004, The Korean Conundrum: America’s Troubled Relations With North and South Korea, pg 160-161)DR

The security treaties with the United States and the U.S. troop presence allow the diversion of financial resources to domestic priorities. And relying on the United States for security **avoids painful debates about what kind of policy those countries need to pursue.** The U.S. security blanket is entirely too comfortable for Washington’s clients. **Without a decisive move by the United States** to take away that security blanket by a certain date, changes in the security posture of South Korea and Japan will be very slow to occur. Second, the United States should encourage the various nations of East Asia to take greater responsibility for the security and stability of their region. In **limited and at times hesitant ways** that process is taking place even without U.S. encouragement. ASEAN has begun to address security issues, most notably taking an interest in the disorders in Indonesia that threatened to spiral out of control in the late 1990s and that continue to pose a problem. Australia assumed a leadership role in helping to resolve the East Timor crisis. It was revealing that Canberra became more proactive after the United States declined to send peacekeeping troops or otherwise become deeply involved in that situation. 37 According to the conventional wisdom that U.S. leadership is imperative lest allies and client states despair and fail to deal with regional security problems, Australia’s actions suggest just the opposite. **When countries in a region facing a security problem cannot offload that problem onto the United States, they take action to contain a crisis and defend their own interests.** More recently, Australia has developed a more defined and robust regional strategy. In a June 2003 speech, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer stated that Australia would not necessarily turn to the United Nations before acting in crises that could affect its security. Instead, Canberra was prepared to join— and sometimes even lead— coalitions of the willing to address urgent regional challenges. Downer spoke as Australia prepared to send 2,000 police officers and supporting military personnel to the Solomon Islands, which had experienced such an epidemic of violence and corruption that it verged on being a failed state. Earlier, Prime Minister John Howard had told Australian lawmakers that having failed states in its neighborhood threatened Australia’s interests, because such states could become havens for criminals and political extremists. 38 Perhaps most revealing, the Australian government plans to double its defense spending over the next three years with the intent of becoming a much more serious military player. 39 Third, Washington should indicate to Tokyo that it no longer objects to Japan’s assuming a more active political and military posture in East Asia. Quite the contrary, U.S. officials ought to adopt the position that, as the principal indigenous great power, Japan will be expected to help stabilize East Asia, contribute to the resolution of disputes, and contain disruptive or expansionist threats that might emerge. Washington also should use its diplomatic influence to encourage political and security cooperation between Japan and its neighbors, but U.S. policymakers must not let East Asian apprehension about a more assertive Japan dictate American policy and keep the United States in its role as regional policeman. It is reasonable to explore with Tokyo avenues of cooperation in those areas where there is a sufficient convergence of interests. That cooperation should not, however, take the form of a new alliance. Proposals to reform and strengthen the alliance are unwise. 40 They will perpetuate Japan’s unhealthy dependence on the United States even as they arouse China’s suspicions of a U.S.–Japanese attempt to contain the People’s Republic. An ongoing security dialogue and occasional joint military exercises would be more appropriate than a formal alliance for East Asia’s security needs in the twenty-first century. Elaborate, formal treaty commitments are a bad idea in general. They are excessively rigid and can lock the United States into commitments that may make sense under one set of conditions but become ill-advised or even counterproductive when conditions change. Beyond that general objection, a U.S.–Japanese alliance would be likely to create special problems in the future. Such an alliance would provide tangible evidence to those in the People’s Republic who contend that Washington is intent on adopting a containment policy directed against China. 41 The United States should retain the ability to work with Japan and other powers if Beijing’s ambitions threaten to lead to Chinese dominance of the region, but Washington must be wary of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. An informal security relationship with Japan would preserve the flexibility to block China’s hegemony, if that danger emerges, without needlessly antagonizing Beijing. **America still can have a potent power projection capability with a reduced military presence based in Guam and other U.S. territories in the central and west-central Pacific.**


 * __Regionalism Adv – 1ac__**


 * Specially, withdrawal will reduce Korea’s veto of multilateral security mechanisms – yielding a peace system on the peninsula that prevents great power war**
 * Lee, 09** – Seoul National University (December 2009, Geun, “The Nexus between Korea’s Regional Security Options and Domestic Politics,” [|www.cfr.org], JMP)

Korea’s Option of Multilateral Security Cooperation in Northeast Asia The idea of multilateral security cooperation in Northeast Asia is not a recent one. __Since__ 19__88__, __Korea has advocated regional security cooperation, and in__ 19__94__, __Korea officially proposed the Northeast Asia Security Dialogue__ (NEASED) __at the ASEAN Regional Forum__ (ARF). Serious discussion of multilateral security cooperation in Northeast Asia started in 2005 during the Six Party Talks to resolve the nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula. In fact, the Six Party Talks have been an important generator of innovative ideas, and participants in the Six Party Talks have gradually realized the importance of a multilateral security mechanism in Northeast Asia, even if they do not share identical interests in such a mechanism.6 From Korea’s perspective, a semi-regional arrangement like the Six Party Talks produces five main benefits.7 First, a multilateral security arrangement in Northeast Asia composed of the United States, China, Japan, Russia, North Korea, and South Korea will provide insurance to the concerned parties that the agreements struck at the Six Party Talks will not be violated by the participants. Cheating and lack of trust are among the fundamental problems in solving the Korean nuclear crisis, and a multilateral binding of agreements can help solve the problems by increasing transparency and the transaction costs of violating the agreements. Second, __a multilateral security arrangement in Northeast Asia is fundamentally a global security arrangement, as it includes all the global powers except the__ __E__uropean __U__nion. The United States and China unofficially form the Group of Two (G2), Japan is an economic superpower, and Russia used to be the leader of the Eastern bloc. __The high concentration of superpowers in Northeast Asia poses a threat to Korea because **an outbreak of great-power conflict in the region will definitely devastate Korea, if not the world.** Therefore, **Korea has reason to promote a multilateral security mechanism** that increases transparency among global powers and functions as a confidence-building measure.__ Third, __voluntary or involuntary betrayal by the__ __U__nited __S__tates __has preoccupied many Koreans and security experts.__ Some Koreans felt betrayed when the United States agreed to the division of the Korean peninsula. The Park Chung-hee government felt abandoned when the United States withdrew a significant portion of U.S. soldiers from Korea, and was taken aback by rapprochement between the United States and China. Many Koreans got upset when the United States supported the authoritarian Korean government and kept silent during the Kwangju massacre in 1980. They again felt betrayed when it was rumored that the Clinton administration planned air strikes against North Korea without informing South Korea. And they were upset with the unilateral foreign policy stance of the George W. Bush administration, including its decision to pull the second infantry division out of Korea. __A multilateral security arrangement in Northeast Asia will mitigate the security concern of Korea when the__ __U__nited __S__tates __either voluntarily or involuntarily defects from its commitment to Korea.__ Fourth, __multilateral security cooperation in Northeast Asia is necessary to **establish a peace system on the Korean peninsula** and ultimately unify Korea.__ Many Korean people doubt that the major powers, including the United States, want the unification of the Korean peninsula. __Korea wants to deal with these powers transparently through a multilateral security cooperation mechanism.__ Fifth, seeing the latest global financial crisis and the rise of China, many Koreans recognize the need to adjust Korea’s external strategy to the changing geoeconomic world. __Making exclusive ties with the__ __U__nited __S__tates __may be a high-risk investment in a past hegemon__, while exclusive ties with China would be a high-risk investment in an uncertain future. __In this transitional period for geoeconomics, multilateral security cooperation is an attractive partial exit option for Korea.__ __A multilateral security mechanism in Northeast Asia appeals to Korea, so **if voice and loyalty in the U.S.-Korea relationship do not reveal positive correlations, then Korea will pay more attention to multilateral regional options.**__ Moreover, **__if the U.S. capability and credibility in delivering its security promises to alliance partners are questioned, there will be fewer veto powers in Korean politics against a multilateral security mechanism in Northeast Asia__**__, particularly when such an option still maintains a loose form of the U.S.-Korea alliance.__


 * Accelerating U.S. withdrawal is key to catalyze a multipolar balance of power in the region and pave the way for an off-shore balancing strategy.**
 * Espiritu, 06** – Commander, U.S. Navy (3/15/06, Commander Emilson M. Espiritu, “The Eagle Heads Home: Rethinking National Security Policy for The Asia-Pacific Region,” [], JMP)

Can the U.S. live with the risk of an unstable Korean Peninsula? The obvious answer is “no.” It is clear that a stable Korean peninsula is more beneficial to the United States. Clearly North Korea is a major player to determining whether the Korean Peninsula remains stable. One would argue __as long as the current regime of Kim Jung Il remains in power and continue to pursue WMD__ (i.e. Nuclear weapons) __there will be a **permanent unstable scenario** in the region.__62 On the other hand, __as long as the__ __U__nited __S__tates __remains in the region and continues to be forward deployed in South Korea__, that __the U.S. is contributing to such instability in the region.__ According to Revere, if there is an unstable region (Korean Peninsula), the U.S. goals become harder to achieve.63 __Should an unstable Korean Peninsula exist, this could possibly lead to conflicts in the region, most obvious between the Koreas__; promote unhealthy economic competition in the region, whereas more developed nations (Japan, China) do not provide any form of economic assistance to the Koreas; __and more dangerously a weapons/arms race (maybe to include more nuclear weapons in the region) to maintain a power balance.__ In order to strengthen regional stability, the U.S. would need to succeed in countering terrorism, enhancing economic prosperity, eliminating weapons of mass destruction, promoting democracy, and addressing transnational issues.64 At what cost and risks is the U.S. willing to accept in order to achieve stability in the region? Conclusion The United States cannot live with the risks involved in an unstable region. The Korean Peninsula and the East-Asia Pacific region are home to many of the economic giants worldwide. Additionally, __with the rising cost of economic commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. must rethink alternatives to bring stability in__ the East-Asia Pacific region more specifically, __the Korean Peninsula. The U.S. must continue to pursue peace and stability__ using all elements of national power certainly __using **less emphasis on a military solution**.__ Additionally, __the U.S. must selectively engage the Koreas to bring stability to the Korean Peninsula by pursuing a combined strategy of isolationism and off-shore balancing.__ Diplomatic, Informational, and Economic solutions take time. __Perhaps by using other countries particularly in the region would be beneficial to the__ __U__nited __S__tates __but also to the other countries as well.__ Strategic positioning of U.S. troops not only around the Korean Peninsula but throughout the world is the key to pursuing the National Objectives. __By pursuing a stable Korean Peninsula without heavy U.S. involvement is beneficial both internationally and economically.__ __Accelerating the withdrawal of U.S. troops, could lead to a multi-polar balance of power in the region.__65 Obviously, this would require a significant change in foreign policy and power position in the region; __it would certainly cause other nations to reconsider their national security strategy.__ All in all, in a speech given by James A. Kelley, stated that “Regional stability remains our overarching strategic goal and provides the underpinnings for achievement of other key goals and objectives.”66 Finally, as stated in the 2006 QDR, “Victory can only be achieved through the patient accumulation of quiet successes and the orchestration of all elements of national and international power.” 67 __Perhaps by completely withdrawing all U.S. troops from South Korea could potentially lead to one of these successes and bring stabilization to the region without heavy U.S. involvement. It is possible by taking the “let them work it out” (the Koreas) approach would certainly be advantageous to the U.S.__ The time is now for the Eagle to head home.


 * Strengthening the East Asian regional security architecture key to solve terrorism, territorial disputes, disease, environmental degradation, and maritime security**
 * Nanto, 08** – Specialist in Industry and Trade Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division for Congressional Research Services (1/4, “East Asian Regional Architecture: New Economic and Security Arrangements and U.S. Policy,” www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33653.pdf)

__A stronger **regional security organization** in East Asia could play a role in quelling terrorism__ by violent extremists. Since terrorism is a transnational problem, __the__ __U__nited __S__tates __relies on international cooperation to counter it. Without close multilateral cooperation, there are simply too many nooks and crannies for violent extremists to exploit.__101 Currently, most of that cooperation is bilateral or between the United States and its traditional allies. While the ASEAN Regional Forum and ASEAN + 3, for example, have addressed the issue of terrorism, neither has conducted joint counter-terrorism exercises as has the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Neither organization as a group, moreover, has joined U.S. initiatives aimed at North Korean nuclear weapons (e.g., the Proliferation Security Initiative). Meanwhile, __tensions continue across the Taiwan Strait, and disputes over territory and drilling rights have flared up between China and Japan and between Japan and South Korea.__ (For the United States, __there is a growing possibility of nationalist territorial conflicts between two or more U.S. allies.__102) The North Korean nuclear issue remains unresolved; North Korea has conducted tests of ballistic missiles and a nuclear weapon; and the oppressive military rule in Burma/Myanmar continues. __Added to these concerns are__ several regional issues: __diseases__ (such as avian flu, SARS, and AIDS), __environmental degradation, disaster mitigation and prevention, high seas piracy, and weapons proliferation__. Memories of the 1997-99 Asian financial crisis still haunt policy makers in Asian countries. These are some of the major U.S. interests and issues as the United States proceeds with its policy toward a regional architecture in East Asia. Since this policy is aimed at the long-term structure of East Asian nations, it can be separated, somewhat, from current pressing problems. A metric by which any architecture can be evaluated, however, is how well it contributes to a resolution of problems as they now exist or will exist in the future.


 * Territorial disputes draw in great powers --- causes World War 3**
 * Waldron, 97** – professor of strategy and policy at the U.S. Naval War College and an associate of the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research at Harvard (March 1997, Arthur, Commentary, “How Not to Deal with China,” EBSCO)

__MAKING THESE flash-points all the more volatile has been a dramatic increase in the quantity and quality of China's weapons acquisitions.__ An Asian arms race of sorts was already gathering steam in the post-cold-war era, driven by national rivalries and the understandable desire of newly rich nation-states to upgrade their capacities; but the Chinese build-up has intensified it. In part a payoff to the military for its role at Tiananmen Square in 1989, China's current build-up is part and parcel of the regime's major shift since that time away from domestic liberalization and international openness toward repression and irredentism. Today China buys weapons from European states and Israel, but most importantly from Russia. The latest multibillion-dollar deal includes two Sovremenny-class destroyers equipped with the much-feared SS-N-22 cruise missile, capable of defeating the Aegis anti-missile defenses of the U.S. Navy and thus sinking American aircraft carriers. This is in addition to the Su-27 fighter aircraft, quiet Kilo-class submarines, and other force-projection and deterrent technologies. In turn, the Asian states are buying or developing their own advanced aircraft, missiles, and submarines--and considering nuclear options. __The sort of unintended escalation which started two world wars could arise from any of the conflicts around China's periphery. It nearly did so__ in March 1996, when China, in a blatant act of intimidation, fired ballistic missiles __in the Taiwan Straits. It could arise from a Chinese-Vietnamese confrontation__, particularly if the Vietnamese should score some unexpected military successes against the Chinese, as they did in 1979, and if the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which they are now a member, should tip in the direction of Hanoi. __It could flare up from the smoldering insurgencies among Tibetans__, Muslims, or Mongolians living inside China. __Chains of alliance or interest, perhaps not clearly understood until the moment of crisis itself**, could easily draw in neighboring states--**Russia, or India, or Japan--or the__ __U__nited __S__tates.

**Advantage Three is Russia**


 * U.S. military concessions toward North Korea are critical to break the deadlock in the six party talks. This will provide a framework to re-establish US-Russian relations, stabilize the peninsula, and allow Russia to become a major economic player in the region.**
 * Toloraya, 08** – diplomat with the rank of Minister and Director of Korean Programs at IMEMO, the top Russian Foreign Ministry official in charge of the Korean peninsula, Doctor of Economy and a Full Professor degree in Oriental Studies (Georgy, //Asian Perspective,// “**THE SIX PARTY TALKS: A RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE”, ProQuest)**

__The real root of the controversy, as Russian experts interpret it, is the fact that no "strategic decision" has yet been taken__ in either capital about the future. __The United States still has not demonstrated its long-term commitment to toleration of the Pyongyang regime and coexistence with it without overt or covert attempts to bring it down.__ Consequently, __North Korea has nothing left but to depend on its "military deterrent" and try to keep the country isolated in order to conserve the system and prevent its collapse. Russian experts try to see the reality as it is and not set misleading goals and deadlines.__ A serious policy cannot be based on wishful thinking and misapprehension. It is hard to imagine how North Korea could discard its only trump card-the nuclear weapons it now has-in return for mere promises, although it is prepared to move forward cautiously with terminating and dismantling its military nuclear production program. That should be encouraged. At the same time it is necessary to be fully aware that North Korea's renouncing of nuclear weapons will take a much longer time, and even then may only happen if it is satisfied with comprehensive security guarantees that have yet to be provided.45 How do Russian experts see the possible future of the Six Party Talks? There is still no agreed concept of what should be their outcome. This should be worked out collectively. __The change of U.S. administrations provides a chance for setting a goal, which should be realistic and then would enjoy Russian support.__ Some possibilities follow. * __The chief strategic goal of the diplomatic process should definitely not be just denuclearization, but peace, development, and friendly cooperation in Northeast Asia.__ The issue of North Korea's security is sometimes omitted and that blocks any progress. Therefore __it is necessary to solve the WMD and other related issues in a manner that would not jeopardize the main priorities-peacefully and step-by-step.__ In fact, solving the main task is the key to solving the WMD-related concerns. __* A peaceful scenario would presume turning the DPRK into a peaceful, non-aggressive, developing state, open to international cooperation-in short, the "conventionalization" of the country.__ That might seem utopian with the current regime, but it is under- going an evolution that could be successful provided the regime has sufficient guarantee of its security, including guarantees for the safety of the current elite. Therefore, the transformation should be gradual and not endanger political stability. An eventual power succession in the DPRK would present an ideal chance for starting such a process. * International assistance is a must for overcoming the backwardness and isolation of the DPRK, which is necessary for comprehensive security. The long history of aid to developing countries suggests that aid can be futile, even counterproductive, in the absence of complementary reforms.46 Therefore, economic assistance to the DPRK as part of the package for the solution of the nuclear problem should be aimed at assisting system transformation, not at preservation of its outdated model. * The six-party format can be an ideal venue for coordination of such assistance. Its long-term aim should be the DPRK's economic and social transformation, by drawing it into the international division of labor and introducing international managerial experience, including a gradual transformation of the current political elite to become a more liberal government system. (Many members of the elite are relatives or comrades in a framework of clan politics.) * For coordination of economic and development assistance, the interested countries (not limited to the Six Party Talk members) could choose to create a special body entrusted with the task of planning and providing such assistance. The experience of KEDO (the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization) proves that this task is feasible. __* In the longer run the solution to Korean security and development issues could provide momentum for forming a regional structure by institutionalizing the Six Party Talks.__ The Desirability of a Multilateral Security System __Russia would like to see a multiparty security and cooperation system emerge in Northeast Asia. The Six Party Talks have provided a unique opportunity to try a multilateral approach to solving the__ thorny __issues that plague the region.__ In a best-possible future, __we might__ paradoxically be __thankful for the appearance of the North Korean nuclear problem simply because it actually triggered the emergence of regional security and cooperation dialogue. It took years to recognize the fact that a solution to the North Korean nuclear problem cannot be found without assuring the security of North Korea itself. T__he latter goal in turn cannot be achieved without the adoption of broader principles of interaction between the countries involved. __That in turn leads to the conclusion that many "narrow" regional problems cannot be solved without first solving general issues of security and cooperation in Northeast Asia.__ This is especially critical in light of a nascent standoff between China, on the one hand, and the United States and Japan, on the other, a confrontation both sides would like to avoid in principle. __Russia, having been drawn into a tense relationship with the United States globally in the wake of the war in Georgia, would also like to see Northeast Asia become a region of cooperation.__ There is no obvious geopolitical reason for confrontation there. __Russia has always been a proponent of a multilateral security mechanism in Asia and the Pacific.__47 Initiatives on multilateral Asian security organizations date back at least to the Gorbachev era.48 __Russian positions in Asia have considerably weakened since the demise of the USSR, while the centrifugal tendencies of the Far Eastern regions have been on the rise.__ Therefore, __Moscow has become even more interested in promoting its interests through a multilateral structure, which would provide access to the decision-making processes of othergovernments and prevent unilateralism.__ Theoretically speaking, __institutionalization of the Northeast Asian security and cooperation mechanism might play an important role in a changeover from contentions based on mutual deterrence to a system of cooperation and competition grounded in the balance of interests, i.e., in a "concert of powers."__ The Six Party Talks may play an important role in working out a "code of conduct" in Northeast Asia and setting up a multilateral mechanism to promote it. As chair of the Working Group on the peace and security mechanism in Northeast Asia (under the February 2007 agreements), Russia has suggested guiding principles for peace and security that the parties should find agreeable.49 The official position is that these principles should be adopted at the level of foreign ministers and thus set the framework for future work. This opinion is shared by the United States, which hopes to move forward on developing a Northeast Asia Peace and Security Mechanism that "would help transform the cooperative relationships built through the Six-Party Process into an enduring security framework for Northeast Asia."50 Russia also enjoys Chinese and ROK support in this activity.51 However, __controversies among the Asian members of the club could prevent them from setting up a charter of Northeast Asian security and cooperation.__ At the same time North Korea sees the multilateral format mostly as a nuisance-merely decoration for its bilateral dealings with the United States. North Korean diplomats consider the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) model irrelevant to Northeast Asia, pointing to this organization's failure to resolve the crisis in Yugoslavia.52 __The stalemate in U.S.-North Korea dialogue as well as the pause in North-South Korea relations makes the DPRK's cooperation with the ROK on security issues unlikely and the degree of eagerness and initiative of the two Koreas in promoting multilateralism questionable at best. There is thus a niche for a relatively neutral Russian mediator role.__ __Active diplomacy in this direction is especially important for Russia in the context of its global relations with the "centers of power." As Russia is increasingly seen as an opponent if not a foe of the West__ (e.g., the expression "the new cold war" has already been coined), __it would be natural to think its cooperation with the United States on global issues would be limited at best. However, this logic should not necessarily apply in the Korean case, which might well be considered a special one in Russia-U.S. international dealings. U.S.-Russia cooperation in the framework of the 6PT **might have much wider global implications.**__53 __At the same time, Moscow conservatives still fear that a fulfledged OSCE-type structure might only increase the U.S. hold on the region without producing tangible benefits for Russia or for other regional actors. They argue that Washington only pursues its own interests and is trying to strengthen its foothold in the area.__ Under this logic a new security architecture might harness not only its allies but also China and Russia in a framework where the United States, not being a geographical part of the region, would have rights but not obligations. The concept of what the agenda of the multilateral forum could be and the sequence of stages for establishing such a structure is being discussed in the Russian expert community. Some argue that Northeast Asia is not yet ready for a security mechanism and the road to it should start with a multilateral cooperation structure. “In a multilateral process,” writes one Russian researcher, “structural and procedural issues are often no less important for the effectiveness of the process than substantive issues.”54 The multiparty diplomatic process should therefore become a multi-track one, where progress in one direction should not necessarily depend on the situation in other tracks. A Japanese expert’s approach—to link the bilateral, minilateral, and multilateral issues and institutions under the six-party umbrella framework—also seems sound.55 Such an approach can be used to address region-specific proliferation issues, security guarantees, economic assistance, and diplomatic relations, including changing the Korean armistice regime to a new peace regime and achieving coordination of institutions. Some suggestions for promoting the Northeast Asian cooperation organization building follow. • The security architecture should be discussed at an early stage, although the implementation of an agreed concept might take time. The general principles discussed between the parties are well-established in international practice and include obeying the UN Charter principles, forging mutual trust, noninterference in internal affairs, a decline in military danger, and diplomatic conflict resolution. Nevertheless, these principles will still not be formally agreed upon pending resolution of the nuclear issue. Discussion (including at Track II level) aimed at working out common approaches to forming a collective comprehensive security system should therefore be encouraged. The Chinese idea of integrative security presented at the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in 1996—combining comprehensive, cooperative, and common security concepts56—could become a basis for these discussions. • On a more practical level the sides should begin designing trustbuilding measures for the prevention of maritime and air incidents, notifications of military exercises and their monitoring by observers, and annual reviews of defense doctrines. Ensuring the security of maritime communication lines in Northeast Asia and to the south may also be relevant. • Countermeasures to nonconventional threats and challenges should be elaborated, including assistance during natural calamities, as well as fighting epidemics, environmental problems, cross-border crime, drug trafficking, and illegal migration. These issues are discussed at various fora, including ARF, but sometimes the area covered seems to be too broad for any concrete decisions and measures.57 • Multilateral economic projects and coordination of regional economic policies should be discussed, particularly laying out common approaches to the setting up of new zones for free trade and reforming existing ones. Russia is especially interested in establishing regional integration in energy and transport infrastructure, in which it would be a core key participant.58 • The setting up of an infrastructure for inter-civilizational and inter-ethnic contacts and rapprochement in the region where longstanding ethnic strife exists might become a historic mission of the new regional organization. It is important to develop joint projects in culture, science, and education, and stimulate multilateral humanitarian exchanges with due account of experience gained at bilateral negotiations. Regardless of the twists and turns on the thorny road of Korean settlement, __promoting multilateral security cooperation will remain Russia’s priority. The reasons are not only__ military and __security in nature but also economic.__ __In this era of uncertainty of world finance, the development of the real estate sector is fast becoming a priority, and this means an increased need for Russia’s greater involvement in Northeast Asian regional energy and industrial projects.__ =Russia Adv – 1ac=

**Relations key to solve accidental nuclear war** **Cohen 10**—prof, Russian Studies and History, NYU. Prof emeritus, Princeton (Stephen, US-Russian Relations in an Age of American Triumphalism: An Interview with Stephen F. Cohen, 25 May 2010, http://www.thenation.com/article/us-russian-relations-age-american-triumphalism-interview-stephen-f-cohen, AMiles)

Cohen: The real concern I have with this "we won the Cold War" triumphalism is the mythology that we are safer today than we were when the Soviet Union existed. Though it is blasphemous to say so, we are not safer for several reasons, one being that the Soviet state kept the lid on very dangerous things. The Soviet Union was in control of its nuclear and related arsenals. Post-Soviet Russia is "sorta" in control, but "sorta" is not enough. []There is no margin for error. Reagan's goal in the 1980s was not to end the Soviet Union, but to turn it into a permanent partner of the United States. He came very close to achieving that and deserves enormous credit. He did what had to be done by meeting Gorbachev half-way. But since 1991, the arrogance of American policymaking toward Russia has either kept the Cold War from being fully ended or started a new one. The greatest threats to our national security still reside in **Russia**. This is not because it's communist, but because it **is laden with** all these **nuclear, chemical, and biological devices—that’s the threat**. The reaction of the second Bush administration was to junk decades of safe-guarding agreements with Moscow. It was the first time in modern times that we have had no nuclear control reduction agreement with the Russians. **What should worry us** every day and night is the triumphalist notion **that nuclear war** is no longer possible. It **is now possible in even more ways than before, especially accidental ones**. Meanwhile, the former Soviet territories remain a Wal-Mart of dirty material and know-how. If terrorists ever explode a dirty device in the United States, even a small one, the material is likely to come from the former Soviet Union. The Nunn-Lugar Act (1992) was the best program Congress ever enacted to help Russia secure its nuclear material and know-how, a major contribution to American national security. But no one in Washington connects the dots. Take Senator Lugar himself. He seems not to understand that we need Russia's complete cooperation to make his own legislation fully successful, but he repeatedly speaks undiplomatically, even in ugly ways, about Russia’s leaders, thereby limiting their cooperation and undermining his own legacy. In other words, to have a nuclear relationship with Russia that will secure our national security, we must have a fully cooperative, trusting political relationship with Moscow. That’s why all the talk about a replacement for the expired START agreement, which Obama has been having trouble reaching with the Kremlin, is half-witted. Even if the two sides agree, and even if the Senate and Russian Duma ratify a new treaty, the agreement will be unstable because the political relationship is bad and growing worse. Evidently, no one in the Administration, Congress, or the mainstream media, or, I should add in the think tanks, can connect these dots. =Russia Adv – 1ac=

**Independently, peaceful US overtures toward Korea is critical to break the deadlock in Russian-DPRK relations and pave the way for a massive expansion of renewed economic ties on the peninsula** **Joo, 09** – Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan (April 09, Seung-Horris, “Moscow–Pyongyang Relations under Kim Jong-il: High Hopes and Sober Reality”)

Trade and Investment In the late 1980s, North Korea's trade with the Soviet Union and its affiliates constituted three-quarters of North Korea's total trade volume. Bilateral trade between Pyongyang and Moscow sharply dropped from approximately $US1bn in 1989–90 to $US80m in the mid-1990s. After the three summits between Putin and Kim Jong-il in 2000–02, bilateral economic contacts and exchanges of economic delegations increased. Still, the level of economic cooperation remained low and there were few joint ventures. After 2000, bilateral trade increased to about $US130m in 2002–04.46 Still North Korea's trade with Russia in 2003 was less than 2 percent of its total trade volume. By contrast, North Korea's trade with China in the same year constituted one-third of North Korea's total trade.47 The Russia–DPRK trade volume in 2005 was lower than the 1990 level; and further declined from $US240m in 2005 to $US190m in 2006. The reduction in trade in 2006 was due to a reduction in Russian oil exports. Russia's exports to North Korea in 2006 stood at $US190m and Russia's imports from North Korea in the same year reached $US20m. The bulk of the trade was carried out between North Korea and Russia's Far Eastern regions, which accounted for 80% of the total trade between the two countries.48 The main Russian exports are coal, timber, petroleum products and nitrogen fertilizers. North Korea's main export items include workers, sea products, food and agricultural products.49 North Korea's imports from Russia far exceed its exports, resulting in a widening trade deficit for North Korea.50 North Korea is suffering from chronic and serious trade deficit overall. According to the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA), North Korea's trade volume reached $US3bn (excluding its trade with South Korea) in 2005, recording a trade deficit of $US1bn. The trade deficit is attributed to the drop in exports of fisheries goods and increased imports of energy resources, food, and machinery.51 China is North Korea's most important economic partner (except for South Korea) and China's economic influence over the country is increasing. Economic cooperation between the DPRK and China is on the rise, whereas economic cooperation between the DPRK and Russia remains flat. China's trade with and investment in the DPRK is carried out by small firms, which are proactive and aggressive, but Russia's economic cooperation with the DPRK is led by big, unwieldy state-owned firms.52 There have been numerous talks between the DPRK and Russia to expand economic cooperation, but very few of the planned projects have been actually implemented. Russia has been pushing for trilateral economic cooperation combining Russia's technical facilities, the DPRK's labor, and the ROK's capital. North Korean factories built with the support of the Soviet Union, including the Kimchaek steel plant, the Seungri chemical plant, the Ryongsong bearing plant, and the Anju textile plant, need repairs and upgrading. Russia is proposing to modernize these industrial facilities with the ROK's capital. Gazprom Neft is interested in a project aimed at overhauling the Seungri Oil Refinery in North Korea. The two countries will also discuss the possibility of resuming supplies of Russian crude oil to Seungri if an agreement can be reached between Russian oil producers and the North Korean government.53 Russia and North Korea are interested in a joint project to build an interstate electro-transmission line between Vladivostok and Chongjin. Russia's electricity monopoly Unified Energy Systems (UES) is interested in providing electricity to South and North Korea. UES wants to pursue a trilateral project through which it will build an electric line from the Far East to North Korea and supply it with 800 megawatts of electricity. UES made a couple of proposals, but nothing came out of it.54 According to a draft protocol of the Russian–North Korean intergovernmental commission in March 2007, Russia's Eurocement Group will take part in the modernization of the North Korean Sunchon Cement Complex. The protocol listed other possible joint projects including cooperation in repairing and scrapping ships at the Ryongnam shipyard, joint production at the Taedonggang Storage Battery Plant, and a joint venture at a North Korean bearing plant.55 North Korea wants Russian companies to construct the second line of the East Pyongyang power and heat plant and to reconstruct another two power and heat stations.56 Iron Silk Road Putin is keen on the "iron silk road" project of linking the TSR to the TKR for economic and security reasons. He states that this project would contribute to the development of the Russian Far East and help reduce tensions in Korea. Following the 2000 inter-Korean summit talks, Seoul and Pyongyang agreed to re-link an inter-Korean railway severed by the division of the nation. If the TKR were linked up with the TSR, trilateral economic cooperation between Russia, the ROK, and the DPRK would gain momentum. Putin broached the iron silk road plan when he first met with Kim Jong-il in 2000, and Kim reportedly responded favorably. Putin continued to promote the iron silk road and triangular economic cooperation when he met with President Kim Dae-jung while attending the UN Millennium Summit in September 2000. At this meeting, the two leaders agreed to connect the TKR to the TSR.57 Putin and Kim Jong-il confirmed their will to pursue the iron silk road plan when they met a second time in 2001. Before the iron silk road project is realized, inter-Korean railroads must be re-linked. In May 2007, North and South Korea carried out test runs of trains across the demilitarized zone, and during the second inter-Korean summit in October 2007, Kim Jong-il and Roh Moo-hyun agreed to open their border to freight railroad services. In December 2007, North and South Korea resumed the inter-Korean cargo train service between the Munsan Station in the South and the Panmun Station in the North (a 19.8 km route). The cross-border railway service had been suspended since the Korean War (1950–53). The cargo railroad service would run on weekdays carrying raw materials, parts and manufactured goods to and from the Gaeseong Industrial Complex in North Korea, and South Korea. For economic reasons,58 Seoul is primarily interested in the Seoul–Pyongyang–Sinuiju line (along the west coast of the Korean peninsula) connecting the TKR to a Chinese railroad more than the Seoul–Wonsan–Khasan line (along the east coast of the Korean peninsula) linking the TKR to the TSR. Russia, however, wants South Korea to choose the east coast option. Moscow has persistently pushed for the iron silk road plan. In December 2002, a working group of Russian railway ministry experts completed a thorough examination of the 101.2 km-long Wonsan–Geumgangsan stretch of the future TRK.59 Russia had already upgraded a 240-km-long section from Ussuriysk to Khasan by October 2003.60 Russia intends to link the lines between Vladivostok and Cheongjin in North Korea in the first phase and then connect the railway to South Korea in the second phase. The Russian Railways (RZD; state-owned railroad monopoly in Russia) has pursued trilateral cooperation with the DPRK and the ROK to reconstruct a railway stretch from the Khasan station to the Rajin in the northeast of North Korea and to construct a container terminal in the port of Rajin. Russia's Vostochny port near Nakhodka is saturated with freight. Moscow and Pyongyang plan to use the renovated Rajin port to ship freight from Northeast Asia to Russia and Europe after the railroad section is renovated and Rajin port is modernized.61 The 55-km (34-mile) Rajin–Khasan line can connect to the TSR. North Korea's railroads are outdated, ill maintained and in need of repairs. The RZD has pushed to establish an international consortium to finance the $US7bn project to renovate the TKR and to link it to the TSR. In 2001, North Korea and Russia completed a survey on the North's railroad conditions. In March 2006, Pyongyang agreed to the Russia's proposal to form an international consortium to finance the reconstruction of the TKR.62 At the tripartite talks in March 2006, transport chiefs of Russia and the two Koreas agreed to renovate the Rajin-Khasan section as a pilot project. In late April 2007, RZD and the North's Ministry of Railways signed a non-binding memorandum of intention on the reconstruction of a railway section from the Russian border station Khasan to the North Korean port of Rajin. The memorandum also included their intention to construct a container terminal in Rajin.63 On 17 May 2007, Russia and the DPRK launched a first test run of railway traffic between Rajin and Khasan.64 In July 2007, the RZD' representatives announced that the company decided to begin repair and construction work in the third quarter of this year. The reconstruction of the Rajin-Khasan railroad stretch is estimated to cost $US1.7bn.65 According to ROK Foreign Minister Song Min-soon, as of December 2007, the South Korean consortium and Russia's railway company (without North Korea's participation) were discussing the creation of a joint logistics company which would reconstruct the Rajin-Khasan stretch.66 Difficulties in securing the fund are delaying the project. North Korea is less than enthusiastic about the TKR project because its leaders fear their country's collapse and do not want to show to the outside world the poor conditions of their railroads. More importantly, [CONTINUED] =Russia Adv – 1ac=

[CONTINUED]

tensions in DPRK–US relations remain the **main political obstacle** to implementing the Khasan–Najin railroad project. In this context, a statement by the president of the RZD company, Vladimir Yakunin, on the company's website is telling: "At the end of last year [2004] North Korea said that since the USA toughened up its policy towards North Korea the country 'sees no point' in holding a second trilateral meeting of experts to discuss the implementation of the project to reunite the Trans-Korean Railway and link it with the Trans-Siberian Railway."67 The plan to link the TSR with the TKR will work only after North Korea's nuclear crisis is resolved and inter-Korean reconciliation deepens. The plan's success will also depend on securing the funds for the project. China and Russia are in competition to develop Rajin, and China is ahead of Russia. China established the Rason International Distribution Company Limited through the joint investment of the People's Committee Economic Cooperation Company in Rason. The Chinese company secured 50-year exclusive management rights to Port #3 and Port #4 in Rajin and a national highway linking Hunchun and Rajin.68 China reportedly expressed its willingness to invest over $US1bn in Rajin. China is interested in building a 93-kilometre line from Rajin to Hunchun and in constructing logistics, commercial and industrial facilities in Rajin. China's main northeastern port of Dalian is overcrowded and Rajin could ease the burden and give China easy access to the East Sea.69 Debt Repayment Pyongyang's debt to Moscow remains another major obstacle to overall economic cooperation. North Korea owed Soviet Russia about 3.8 billion hard currency.70 North Korea incurred over two-thirds of the debt through purchases of weapons and military equipment from the Soviet Union.71 As the legal successor to the Soviet Union, Russia demanded Pyongyang's assumption of the debt responsibility, and during the second session of the Russia–North Korea Joint Economic Commission in 1997, North Korea for the first time promised to repay its debt to Russia. Since then, negotiations on the debt repayment have been held intermittently, but no agreement has been reached yet. Talks on the debt issue discontinued in 2002, but resumed in late 2006. Russia's Vneshtorgbank and North Korea's Foreign Trade Bank reportedly agreed to set the debt amount at $US8bn after considering interests accrued and the changed exchange rate.72 Until then, Russia held the position that North Korea's debt repayment was a precondition for revitalizing bilateral economic cooperation. In late 2006, Russia proactively engaged the DPRK to negotiate the debt issue, offering to write off the bulk of the debt and proposing new conditions to pay back the remainder. This approach appears to be intended to induce the DPRK to join trilateral economic cooperation with Russia and South Korea and encourage North Korea's continued participation in the Six-Party nuclear talks. According to a Russian diplomatic source, North Korea in recent negotiations offered Russia the rights to develop its underground resources and suggested a lease of land in its ports.73 In talks held in December 2006, Russia proposed "to write off the greater part of the debt and settle the remaining sum on easy terms."74 During a meeting of the intergovernmental commission in March 2007, Russia proposed a number of economic measures to resolve the debt problem, including investment and in exchange for property.75 Konstantin Pulikovski, co-chair of the Russia–North Korea intergovernmental commission for economic cooperation, revealed in March 2007 that North Korea called on Russia to take a political decision (or forgive almost the entire debt) on the debt issue: "The [North] Korean side is openly and plainly saying that in the current situation North Korea is unable to repay its debt to Russia and is proposing to take a political decision on this issue."76 The unresolved debt issue continues to obstruct Russia–DPRK cooperation in economic and scientific-technical spheres. North Korean Laborers North Korea began to send its contract laborers to the Soviet Union as early as 1945.77 According to one estimate, the DPRK currently earns $US5m-$US20m annually by exporting labor to Russia.78 The presence of the North Korean work force in Russia constitutes a significant component of bilateral economic cooperation.79 In 2007, North Korea ranked fourth among countries in terms of the number of its labor force (over 21,700) in Russia.80 North Korea has expressed an interest in increasing the number of its workers. During his official visit to Moscow in August 2001, Kim Jong-il proposed to send more than 5,500 North Korean workers every year. During this second unofficial visit to the Russian Far East in 2002, he again proposed sending an additional 2,500 North Korean workers to the region.81 But the Russian Far East does not have enough jobs to satisfy North Korea's demand. North Korean laborers are engaged in logging in Khabarovsk Krai and Amursk Oblast and farming and apartment construction in Primorye. In February 1995, the Russian government renewed its logging agreement with North Korea, effective for the next three years.82 The renewal agreement included provisions for North Korea's guarantee of better human rights for its workers in Siberia and the right of Russian law enforcement officials to intervene in North Korea logging camps. These stipulations came about after public outcries over the torture and executions of the lumberjacks by North Korean security agents in the Khabarovsk Krai.83 In 1997, the number of North Korean lumberjacks in the Far East decreased by two thirds, from 15,000 to 5,000, due to the reduction of lumber production and increased rail transportation costs in Russia.84 At the end of the 1990s, North Korean loggers in Russia numbered less than 7,000.85 In 2006, over 2,000 North Korean loggers were working in the Amur and Khabarovsk regions.86 North Korean loggers in Khabarovsk Krai are paid about $US170–$US190 per month and North Korean construction workers in Primorye $US120–$US130 a month.87 About 200 North Korean workers are engaged in fishing and mining in Sakhalin.88 In 2005, the total number of North Koreans working in the Russian Far East stood at 13,806. Most of them were on three or six month contracts and very few were on 1–3 year contracts.89 The terms of contract for North Korean workers vary. North Korea's state-owned firms allow the workers to keep as little as 10 percent of their wages. In some instances, North Korean workers, especially at the construction sites in Vladivostok, are required to earn a fixed amount of money but allowed to keep additional income. In other instances, they are not paid in cash but in-kind or in coupons. North Koreans' labor may also be used to pay for timber or oil.90 Conclusions With Putin's arrival in the Kremlin, a new era dawned in Moscow–Pyongyang relations. After a decade of estrangement, the two neighbors finally reached rapprochement. The relations warmed up quickly in 2000 when Putin enthusiastically courted Pyongyang and Kim Jong-il reciprocated. Both Putin and Kim Jong-il initially harbored high hopes for their newly restored relationship. Putin hoped to regain lost influence on Korean affairs by re-establishing ties with Pyongyang. He also wanted to use joint economic projects to develop the Russian Far East and in doing so, assert Russia's position as a major power in Northeast Asia. He was not, however, willing to "pay the price." There are two ways to gain influence over recalcitrant North Korea: it can be either bought or enforced. Putin's Russia offered neither unconditional support, nor profuse assistance to North Korea; and it was not ready to use force to subjugate the country. Kim Jong-il harbored unrealistic expectations of Russia as well. He was hopeful that Putin, as in the Soviet era, would readily grant his requests for military items, energy provision, and economic assistance, and provide them gratis. Repeated requests fell on deaf ears, and every time the same response was heard: "cash only!" Moscow and Pyongyang soon lowered their expectations and became realistic. While trying to stay on Pyongyang's good side, Moscow sought to project its image as an objective mediator and to promote multinational economic projects. Pyongyang, on the other hand, looks to Russia mostly as a counterbalance against the USA. North Korea's persisting nuclear crisis chilled Moscow–Pyongyang relations. It soon became obvious to Russian leaders that Kim Jong-il continued to be intent on dealing with the USA directly for security guarantee and economic aid, and to treat Russia as a secondary player in his survival game. Besides, North Korea's persisting nuclear crisis and the danger of an armed conflict in the Korean peninsula overshadowed all Moscow–Pyongyang relations. North Korea's nuclear issue has to be resolved first before anything meaningful can be done between the two countries. Russia's lack of imagination and irresoluteness has also contributed to the current state of stagnation and inactivity between them. What are the prospects for Moscow–Pyongyang relations? Barring drastic turns of events, the relationship is likely to remain calm and limited in the near future. US foreign policy and US–DPRK relations hold the key to Russia–DPRK relations. For both Russia and North Korea, the USA is the most important country to be reckoned with. By the same token, North Korea has become highly dependent on China in political and economic terms, and Russia will have tough time competing with China. The onset of a mini-Cold War between the USA and Russia may lead to a rekindling of intimate relations between Moscow and Pyongyang, but this scenario is unlikely. What is more likely is a complete immobilization or a sudden death due to serious illness of Kim Jong-il. What impact this eventuality will have on Moscow–Pyongyang relations will be anybody's guess. No matter what happens, Russia will have a long way to go before it is recognized as a major political–economic player in Korea and Northeast Asia.

=Russia Adv – 1ac=

Institute of State Governance and the Yonsei Leadership Center (Nov/Dec, Seung Ham Yang, Woosang Kim, and Yongho Kim, “RUSSO-NORTH KOREAN RELATIONS IN THE 2000S”, Proquest)
 * These increased ties are key to creating a trans-Siberian railroad that revitalizes the Asian and Russian economies**
 * Yang et al. 04**- Yang is Professor of Political Science at Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea, and Director of the

__Improved relations with North Korea would generate an opportunity to engage economically on the Korean Peninsula, by participating__, for example, __in__ future __projects linking Russia with the two Koreas. Specifically, Russia is interested in participating in the Trans-Siberian Railroad__ (TSR) __project. For Seoul, connecting pipelines from Russia Irkhutsk region to South Korea via North Korea could lower current import prices by as much as 25% by obviating the need for expensive maritime transportation.__ This was a departure from Primakov security-oriented approach, which aimed at strategically linking Russia with China and India. (China remained suspicious of India ambitions for regional hegemony and turned down the Russian proposal. The Putin administration took an alternative policy tack toward regional economic cooperation that incorporated Japan, China, and both Koreas, via Putin visit to China, Japan, and North Korea in July 2000, participation in the APEC summit in November that year, and a Seoul visit in February in the following year. In particular, __Russia has pursued multilateral energy and transport projects, taking advantage of energy resources in the Russian Far East and eastern Siberia. This effort ultimately is aimed at building a new Northeast Asian economic community with Russia at its center.__ The discussion so far suggests that __economic factors__ have been and __will be a major driving force in the Moscow-Pyongyang relationship__ in the 2000s. However, as mentioned earlier, __there is a dualism attached to Putin foreign policy that is designed to promote symbiosis between Russia economy and security__, its strategic partnership with China and its position in the competition for regional influence, and between cooperation with the United States and Moscow search for status as a global leader. Below, we address the notion that security still functions as one of the main factors in the Moscow-Pyongyang relationship.

=Russia Adv – 1ac=


 * A Russian economic collapse will trigger nuclear strikes against the US, provoke a Russo-Sino war, and threaten the world with an accidental launch**
 * David 99 –** Professor of Political Science at John Hopkins University [Steven R., “Saving America from the Coming Civil Wars,” //Foreign Affairs,// Jan/Feb, LN]

__If internal war does strike Russia, economic deterioration will be a prime cause__ __.__ From 1989 to the present, the GDP has fallen by 50 percent. In a society where, ten years ago, unemployment scarcely existed, it reached 9.5 percent in 1997 with many economists declaring the true figure to be much higher. Twenty-two percent of Russians live below the official poverty line (earning less than $ 70 a month). Modern Russia can neither collect taxes (it gathers only half the revenue it is due) nor significantly cut spending. Reformers tout privatization as the country's cure-all, but in a land without well-defined property rights or contract law and where subsidies remain a way of life, the prospects for transition to an American-style capitalist economy look remote at best. As the massive devaluation of the ruble and the current political crisis show, Russia's condition is even worse than most analysts feared. If conditions get worse, even the stoic Russian people will soon run out of patience. A future conflict would quickly draw in Russia's military. In the Soviet days civilian rule kept the powerful armed forces in check. But with the Communist Party out of office, what little civilian control remains relies on an exceedingly fragile foundation -- personal friendships between government leaders and military commanders. Meanwhile, the morale of Russian soldiers has fallen to a dangerous low. Drastic cuts in spending mean inadequate pay, housing, and medical care. A new emphasis on domestic missions has created an ideological split between the old and new guard in the military leadership, increasing the risk that disgruntled generals may enter the political fray and feeding the resentment of soldiers who dislike being used as a national police force. Newly enhanced ties between military units and local authorities pose another danger. Soldiers grow ever more dependent on local governments for housing, food, and wages. Draftees serve closer to home, and new laws have increased local control over the armed forces. Were a conflict to emerge between a regional power and Moscow, it is not at all clear which side the military would support. Divining the military's allegiance is crucial, however, since the structure of the Russian Federation makes it virtually certain that regional conflicts will continue to erupt. Russia's 89 republics, krais, and oblasts grow ever more independent in a system that does little to keep them together. As the central government finds itself unable to force its will beyond Moscow (if even that far), power devolves to the periphery__.__ __With the economy collapsing, republics feel less and less incentive to pay taxes to Moscow__ when they receive so little in return. Three-quarters of them already have their own constitutions, nearly all of which make some claim to sovereignty. __Strong ethnic bonds promoted by shortsighted Soviet policies may motivate non‑Russians to secede from the Federation. Chechnya's successful revolt against Russian control inspired similar movements for autonomy and independence throughout the country. If__ these __rebellions spread and Moscow responds with force, civil war is likely. Should Russia succumb to internal war, the consequences for the United States and Europe will be severe. A major power like Russia__ -- even though in decline -- __does not suffer civil war quietly or alone. An embattled Russian Federation might provoke opportunistic attacks from enemies such as China__ __.__ Massive flows of refugees would pour into central and western Europe. __Armed struggles in Russia could easily spill into its neighbors. Damage from the fighting, particularly attacks on nuclear plants, would poison the environment of much of Europe and Asia__. Within Russia, the consequences would be even worse. Just as the sheer brutality of the last Russian civil war laid the basis for the privations of Soviet communism, a second civil war might produce another horrific regime. Most alarming is the real possibility that __the violent disintegration of Russia could lead to loss of control over its nuclear arsenal.__ No nuclear state has ever fallen victim to civil war, but even without a clear precedent the grim consequences can be foreseen. __Russia retains__ some 20,000 __nuclear weapons__ and the raw material for tens of thousands more, __in scores of sites scattered throughout the country__ __.__ So far, the government has managed to prevent the loss of any weapons or much material__.__ __If war erupts__ __,__ however , __Moscow's already weak grip on nuclear sites will slacken, making weapons__ and supplies __available to a wide range of anti-American groups and states. Such dispersal of nuclear weapons represents the greatest physical threat America now faces. And it is hard to think of anything that would increase this threat more than the chaos that would follow a Russian civil war.__ Lack of attention to the threat of civil wars by U.S. policymakers and academics has meant a lack of response and policy options. This does not mean, however, that Washington can or should do nothing at all. As a first measure, American policymakers should work with governments of threatened states to prevent domestic conflict from erupting. Contingency plans for closing the Mexican-American border should be considered. And the possibility of a Mexican civil war raises the issue of American intervention. How and where the United States would enter the fray would of course be determined by circumstances, but it is not premature to give serious thought to the prospect. To guard against a conflict in Saudi Arabia, the United States should lead the effort to reduce Western dependence on Saudi oil. This will require a mixed strategy, including the expansion of U.S. strategic oil reserves (which could be done now, while Saudi oil is cheap and available), locating new suppliers (such as the Central Asian republics), and reviving moribund efforts to find oil alternatives. None of this will be easy, especially in an era of dollar-a-gallon gasoline, but it makes more sense than continuing to rely on an energy source so vulnerable to the ravages of civil war. For __Russia__, America must reduce the chances that __civil__ __conflict__ there __will unleash nuclear weapons against the United States.__