Chris+and%20Carlee


 * Plan:** **The United States federal government should implement a phased withdrawal of its ground troops in the Republic of Korea.**


 * Advantage One is Korean War**


 * The sinking of 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.

[], JMP)
 * The status quo is fundamentally different than the past – the chance of a major miscalculation and global escalation is now possible**
 * 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.**__


 * 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.


 * The U.S. response to bolster deterrence will just increase provocations and make miscalculation more likely**
 * Armstrong, 10 –** Professor of history and director of the Center for Korean Research at Columbia University.. (Charles, 5/26/10, CNN, “The Korean War never ended” [])

On the other hand, __there is a real danger of this war of words escalating into a shooting war.__ With well over a million Korean troops facing each other across the Demilitarized Zone separating North and South, along with 29,000 U.S. troops in the South, and North Korea now armed with nuclear weapons, the consequences of a renewed Korean War would be catastrophic for the Korean peninsula and the entire Northeast Asia region. __The Cheonan incident has reinforced U.S.-South Korean and U.S.-Japanese cooperation in deterring the North. But **deterrence can look like provocation from the other side, and in such a tense and volatile environment, a slight miscalculation can lead to disaster.** Anger and outrage may be understandable, but cooler heads must prevail. Millions of lives are at stake. Rather than lead to deepening confrontation, this tragedy may be an opportunity to re-engage North Korea in talks__ to scale back and ultimately eliminate its nuclear program, and to promote security and economic cooperation with its neighbors. North Korea has never admitted to acts of terrorism in the past, and we cannot expect it to acknowledge responsibility and apologize for the sinking of the Cheonan as a precondition for such talks. Instead, the international community should take advantage of Kim Jong Il's stated willingness to return to multilateral negotiations, suspended since 2008, as a way of reducing tensions on the Korean peninsula. It is time to end the Korean War, not start it anew.


 * Also, North Korean aggression and nuclearization will cause intentional, miscalculated, or accidental nuclear conflict – even a limited nuclear war can spill 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 Korean 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.


 * 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.


 * 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.__


 * A phased withdrawal prevents U.S. draw in – regional security efforts can effectively resolve Korea crises**
 * Carpenter, 09** – vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute (Ted Galen, CATO Handbook for Congress, 7th Edition, “54. East Asian Security Commitments,” [], JMP)

South Korea The U.S. alliance with the Republic of Korea (South Korea) is a cold war anachronism. __Washington should have weaned Seoul from the U.S. security bottle years ago.__ When the security treaty went into effect in 1954, South Korea was a war-ravaged hulk that confronted not only a heavily armed North Korea, but a North Korea strongly backed by both Moscow and Beijing. Under those circumstances, it would have been virtually impossible for South Korea to provide for its own defense. Washington had just waged a bloody war to prevent a communist conquest of the country, and given the cold war context, U.S. leaders regarded the Korean Peninsula as a crucial theater in the effort to contain the power of the Soviet Union and China. Therefore, they deemed it necessary to keep the ROK as a security client. Most South Koreans were extremely grateful for the U.S. protection. Those circumstances bear no resemblance to the situation in the 21st century. __Today, South Korea has twice the population and an economy 40 times larger than that of its communist nemesis.__ The ROK is an economic powerhouse with the world’s 13th-largest economy, and South Korean firms are competitive in a host of high-tech industries. Meanwhile, North Korea is one of the world’s economic basket cases, and there have even been major episodes of famine in that pathetic country. Moscow and Beijing have major economic ties with the ROK and regard North Korea as an embarrassment. They have no interest whatever in backing another bid by Pyongyang to forcibly reunify the peninsula. Under those conditions, South Korea should certainly be able to defend itself. Yet instead of building military forces sufficient to protect its security, Seoul remains heavily dependent on the United States for key aspects of its defense. Despite its proximity to North Korea, the ROK spends a paltry 2.77 percent of its gross domestic product on the military—less than does the United States, half a world away and located in a peaceful region. There is simply no justification for continuing that free ride. Equally unpleasant is the growing lack of gratitude on the part of many South Koreans for the exertions the United States has made over the decades on behalf of their security. __Public opinion polls show that younger South Koreans regard the__ __U__nited __S__tates __as a more serious threat than North Korea____.__ Indeed, __many South Koreans now believe that Washington is the **principal obstacle to better relations with North Korea** and to eventual political reunification____.__ The current government of President Lee Myungbak may be less overtly anti-American than that of his predecessor, but that sentiment has scarcely diminished among the general population. The ongoing North Korean nuclear crisis illustrates the drawbacks associated with Washington’s insistence on micromanaging the security affairs of East Asia. __In a normal international system, the East Asian frontline states would be taking the lead in formulating policies to deal with North Korea instead of expecting the__ __U__nited __S__tates to negotiate directly with Pyongyang and produce an agreement acceptable to them all. They would decide what risks they were willing to incur to compel Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear program—or in the alternative, whether they were prepared to live with a nuclear-armed North Korea. That is not to say that the United States has no interests at stake regarding North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. Washington understandably wants to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons—in East Asia and elsewhere. There is also legitimate concern that North Korea might eventually become a nuclear arms peddler, supplying bombs to other anti-American regimes— and perhaps even to terrorist organizations. Pyongyang’s apparent assistance to Syria regarding nuclear technology highlighted the proliferation problem. Nevertheless, the danger a nuclear-armed North Korea could pose to the United States is more remote and theoretical than the danger to North Korea’s neighbors. Their risk exposure is inherent—imposed by the realities of geography. Even if North Korea acquired only a few nuclear warheads and only modestly increased the range of its current delivery systems, it would pose a plausible threat to the security of South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia. Conversely, __America’s risk exposure is largely discretionary. The principal reason Washington is obsessed with the North Korean problem is the presence of__ more than 27,000 __U.S. troops__ in South Korea. __Because of those forces, America has put itself__, quite literally, __on the **frontlines of a potentially explosive crisis**__**__.__** That approach is precisely the opposite of the course Washington ought to adopt. __The__ new __administration should__ immediately begin to __reduce America’s risk exposure by ordering a phased withdrawal of U.S. forces from South Korea____.__ Washington should also indicate to the __East Asian powers__ that they __bear primary responsibility for dealing with__ the problem of __North Korea__’s nuclear program, since they have the most at stake. It is time, indeed it is long past time, to insist that South Korea manage its own security affairs. The United States has drawn down its military forces stationed in that country from approximately 37,000 to 27,000 over the past six years. Washington should implement a complete withdrawal within the next three years and terminate the misnamed mutual security treaty. That commitment was designed for an entirely different era. There is no need and very little benefit today for keeping South Korea as a security client.
 * Advantage 2 is Succession Politics**


 * A massive power struggle is underway in North Korea – warring factions will facilitate several avenues for conflict**
 * Bandow, 10** – Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and former Special Assistant to Reagan (6/9/10, Doug, The Daily Caller, “Confronting North Korea: Who’s in charge?”[], JMP)

We see through a glass darkly, said the Apostle Paul, and that is certainly the case when it comes to North Korea. Power appears to be shifting as the Supreme People’s Assembly meets in Pyongyang. The premier has been replaced. Three other ministers were replaced. Six vice premiers were added. And Kim’s brother-in-law, Chang Song-taek, was elevated to the vice chairmanship of the National Defense Commission, the true fount of power in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. All of these moves were orchestrated by “Dear Leader” Kim Jong-il, whose power has never seemed in doubt. The switch in prime ministers may reflect an attempt to boost the economy after a botched currency exchange last fall. One of the other ministerial changes covers foodstuffs—amid rumors of worsening food shortages. But Chang’s move may be the most important, since he is seen as Kim’s closest ally who managed the affairs of state when Kim was recovering from a stroke. Chang also has been tasked with helping to manage the anointment of Kim’s 28-year-old son, Kim Jong-un, as the latter’s successor. __Adding mystery to the latest moves were three other recent leadership changes. In April a top party official was said to have died of a heart attack. In May a member of the NDC was said to have retired because of his age, 80, even though plenty of other aging officials hold top positions. And last week a senior official in the Korean Worker’s Party—a rival of Chang’s who also was reportedly entrusted with smoothing the transfer of power—was said to have died in a car accident.__ __All plausible explanations. But all equally **plausible covers for a power struggle.**__ **__There never would be a good time for instability in North Korea.__** __The heavily armed regime continues with its nuclear program.__ It has been pulling back in its modest economic liberalization of recent years. __In April the DPRK apparently sank the Cheonan__, a South Korean warship, **__the North’s first deadly act of war in more than two decades__****__.__** Since then the Republic of Korea has cut economic ties and barred Pyongyang’s ships from South Korean waters. The North reciprocated by closing, or at least saying that it intended to close, the Kaesong industrial park, in which ROK companies employ North Korean workers. Hostile rhetoric has filled the air, but no one really wants war. Although the DPRK has made brinkmanship its principal negotiating strategy, Pyongyang knows that it would lose any conflict. Even when it comes to whatever nuclear capability Kim Jong-il has developed—miniaturizing weapons and developing delivery systems are not easy—deterrence works. He and his cohorts want their virgins (and liquor) in this life, not the next. The Cheonan’s sinking, while not likely to lead to war, does provide several important geopolitical lessons. First, __there may be serious, potentially **destabilizing internal regime conflicts**__ __which are currently hidden.__ Theories abound about the sinking of the Cheonan, including rogue military act to block better relations with the West and officially sanctioned policy to win military support for Kim Jong-un’s succession. The recently announced personnel shifts only deepen the mystery. Second, the ROK’s military, despite supposedly possessing maritime superiority, must focus more on national defense. Seoul has been grandly thinking of an increased regional and even global military role. But when the North can use a midget-sub, as one theory runs, to sink a South Korean ship in South Korean waters, the Lee government must focus on its most important responsibility, safeguarding the nation. Third, the U.S.-ROK alliance has outlived its usefulness. The South is well-able to defend itself, with some 40 times the DPRK’s GDP and twice the DPRK’s population. There’s no reason for Washington, which faces a deficit of $1.6 trillion this year, to borrow money for the privilege of defending South Korea, which is well able to spend much more on its military if circumstances require. Fourth, __there’s no reason to expect a “soft landing” in the North.__ The existing regime has demonstrated enormous resilience, both in surviving crisis and in resisting change. However, __it took Kim Il-sung__, who won control with Soviet aid at the North’s founding in 1949, __decades to transfer power to his son, Kim Jong-il. The latter is in ill health and probably doesn’t have nearly as much time to orchestrate a similar transfer. The result could be a **messy power struggle on Kim’s death**__, with, in addition to Kim Jong-un, two other sons, a brother-in-law, a younger half-brother, past and present wives, various illegitimate children, and any number of officials who have been waiting years, even decades, for their chance to gain control. Finally, __the key to solving the “North Korean problem” is China.__ Shortly after the sinking of the Cheonan Kim Jong-il scurried off to the PRC, apparently with his chosen son in tow. Today Beijing provides the DPRK with the bulk of its food and energy. __Until now the Chinese leadership has believed that pushing Kim too hard risked the stability of the peninsula. But if Kim is willing to commit an act of war against the South, his regime is the real source of dangerous regional instability__. The PRC would be serving its own interest if it acted to neuter Pyongyang. It’s hard to believe, but __the situation in North Korea could get worse. Imagine a weak collective leadership after Kim’s death **dissolving into warring factions** as competing officials looked to their favorite Kim relative or army general. Imagine burgeoning civil strife, growing public hardship, and mass refugee flows. Or violence flowing across the Yalu River to the north and demilitarized zone to the south.__ __Washington’s best policy would be to step back from this geopolitical miasma____.__ Any map demonstrates which countries have the most at stake in a stable Korean peninsula: South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia. It is time for them to take the lead. America could help as they search for a solution. But North Korea truly is their problem far more than Washington’s problem.

[], JMP)
 * Succession politics makes provocations __more likely and dangerous__** **and crushes the chance of effective engagement to rollback North Korea’s nuclear program**
 * Bandow, 09** – Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and former Special Assistant to Reagan (7/29/09, Doug, “Kim’s Heir,”

President George W. Bush famously said that he “loathed” North Korea’s Kim Jong-il. Yet the United States might come to miss the brutal dictator, with his abundant gut and bouffant hair. Resolving the North Korean nuclear crisis through diplomacy was never going to be easy; __with an impending leadership change in Pyongyang, **diplomatic solutions are likely to become near impossible.**__ Reports suggest that Kim Jong-il may have pancreatic cancer; some analysts predict he could die within the year. Since the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) was established in 1948, only two men have held supreme power: Kim Il-sung, who died at age eighty-two in 1994, and his son, Kim Jong-il. The monarchical succession from the former to the latter faced opposition at home and in China, the DPRK’s closest ally, but Kim Jong-il’s rise to power was carefully orchestrated by his father in a process that took more than two decades. Who now will take the throne? North Korea has evolved into the modern equivalent of the Ottoman Empire. “Great Leader” Kim Il-sung was married twice and had many other relationships. Kim Jong-il apparently has had four wives or long-term mistresses. The result has been several children from different spouses as well as a number of illegitimate children. Family members have played a significant role in the regime. Kim Jong-il faced political competition from his uncle, Kim Yong-ju, who eventually was sidelined by Kim Il-sung. Kim Jong-il also pushed aside his younger half-brother, Kim Pyong-il, who since 1979 has been posted as ambassador to several European nations, keeping him out of domestic North Korean politics. When the elder Kim died in July 1994, Kim Jong-il appeared to face little opposition to taking control. Until Kim Jong-il fell ill, he appeared to give little thought to his succession. However, STRATFOR’s Roger Baker believes that Kim “has a very strong fear that after he dies, if the country changes direction, that his family may be on the receiving end of vigilantism or punished or killed.” That’s plausible, though Kim may simply desire to cement his legacy by choosing someone who would have little choice but to venerate Kim’s rule. Observes Atsuhito Isozaki of Tokyo’s Keio University: “Since Kim had a stroke last year, North Korea appears to be in a hurry in naming his successor.” Earlier this year Kim apparently designated twenty-six year-old Kim Jong-un, his youngest son, as his heir. Reports indicate that Kim Jong-un was recently shifted from his position at the Korean Workers’ Party to the National Defense Commission (NDC). Party and military officials have been tasked with promoting the younger Kim, jokingly referred to by some observers as “Cute Leader”; he is being called “Brilliant Comrade” and “Commander Kim” by the North’s media. Open Radio for North Korea reports that diplomats and military leaders have been informed of his new status and promotional efforts have been launched, including party and military propaganda campaigns. Reports are circulating that the succession may be confirmed at an upcoming party conference in October of this year or next. Another theory is that the process may be formalized in 2012, the centenary of the birth of Kim Il-sung. Kim Jong-un is a virtual unknown outside of North Korea. Only one photo of him exists, taken when he attended the International School in Bern, Switzerland. During his two years there he apparently demonstrated some proficiency in English, French, and German, enjoyed skiing and watching Hollywood action movies, and favored the National Basketball Association. Classmates say he showed no political interest, though he was only in his mid-teens then. However, __unless Kim Jong-il survives and rules for at least several years, the younger Kim is unlikely to have an easy__ __a time claiming his political inheritance in a culture that typically reveres age—and in which potential rivals are many.__ The regime number two appears to be the elder Kim’s brother-in-law, Jang Song-taek, who disappeared in a purge a few years ago but recently reemerged. Kim Jong-il recently named Jang to the NDC. Jang is only four years younger than Kim and his independent authority is hard to assess. Jang, backed by the NDC’s O Kuk-ryol and Kim Yong-chun, is thought to have been tasked to act as Kim Jong-un’s principal mentor. However, he might not be satisfied playing a secondary role in the event of Kim Jong-il’s death. Many other senior officials have been waiting for years and even decades to take charge. Their loyalty to Kim Jong-il might not survive his death. Especially since there are more than a few Kim family members available to front for competing factions. For instance, Kim Jong-il’s oldest son is thirty-eight year-old Kim Jong-nam, who apparently fell into disgrace after he was discovered traveling on a forged passport while attempting to enter Japan in order to visit Tokyo Disneyland. He now lives in Macau. Although he seems out of the power equation and in a television interview voiced his support for Kim Jong-un, reports recently surfaced that his supporters were being purged and that Kim Jong-un’s aides organized an assassination plot, busted by China. (If true, this would seem to mimic the Ottoman practice of new sultans eradicating male family members who could challenge their ascension.) Kim Jong-un has an older brother, Kim Jong-chol. Their mother, Ko Yong-hui, is said to have been Kim Jong-il’s favorite wife. Before she died of cancer in 2004 she reportedly was promoting both sons as potential heirs. The twenty-eight year-old Kim Jong-chol is supposedly sickly and viewed as effeminate by his father. Nevertheless, he apparently runs the Party Leadership Department, traditionally a critical position. However, some of the department’s functions apparently have been transferred to Jang. Although Kim Jong-chol has formally pledged to support his younger brother, that could change and the former could be used by a competing faction. Kim Jong-il’s current wife/mistress, Kim Ok, and her relatives, though currently unimportant politically, also conceivably could play a role in providing a family connection in any ensuing power struggle. So could Kim Pyong-il, Kim Jong-il’s half-brother who is currently serving as the DPRK’s ambassador to Poland. More distant family members are not likely to dominate the North’s political future, but still might play a role in any factional struggle. __How this international soap opera will turn out is anyone’s guess. But it could have a **significant impact on Pyongyang’s relations with the rest of the world**—and not for the better.__ Given the horrors perpetuated by Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, __it is hard to imagine the situation getting worse in the DPRK. However, overt factionalism, a brutal power struggle, and political instability would add an incendiary element to peninsula affairs. Observes__ Dennis __Blair, Director of National Intelligence: **“Any time you have a combination of this behavior of doing provocative things in order to excite a response—plus succession questions—you have a potentially dangerous mixture.”**__ __At the very least, an insecure leader, weak collective rule, and/or a de facto military government all likely would **make North Korean concessions on the nuclear issue even less likely****.**__ A new, more responsible and forward-looking regime—one that recognized real international influence requires significant reform—might eventually emerge. However, counting on that result would let hope trump experience. The United States should continue diplomatic efforts, both bilateral and multilateral. Moreover, __Washington should intensify its efforts to engage China in a concerted campaign to pressure Pyongyang and/or seek to effect regime change.__ At the same time, however, policy makers must realistically assess the future. The United States and North Korea’s neighbors had better prepare for the possibility of an even more unsettled and dangerous future.

**Kim Jong Un needs to score some political victories to ensure a stable succession process – right now he is using military provocations to try and win support of the military** **Lee, 10** (5/27/10, Jean H., writer for the Associated Press, The Associated Press, “Analysis: Attack May Be Tied to NKorean Succession”, http://www.lexisnexis.com) Young, inexperienced and virtually unknown even at home, Kim Jong Un **needs at least a few political victories** under his belt if he is to succeed his father as leader of communist North Korea. The sinking of a South Korean warship may well have provided Kim Jong Il's 20-something son and rumored heir with a victory that would bolster his support within the communist country's military, a million-man force in need of a boost after a November sea battle left one North Korean sailor dead. North Korea has vehemently denied involvement in the torpedo attack that sank the Cheonan near the Koreas' sea border in March, killing 46 sailors in one of the boldest attacks on the South since the Korean War of the 1950s. The timing might seem inexplicable: After a year of intransigence, North Korea seemed willing and ready to return to nuclear disarmament talks. But North Korea has never seen violence and negotiation as incompatible, and domestic issues a succession movement and military discontent may be more urgent than foreign policy. North Korea's leaders tightly control information and thrive on myths and lies. However, they cannot hide that the nation is in turmoil, struggling to build its shattered economy and to feed its 24 million people. The number of defectors is rising, and the encroachment of the outside world, through videos and films smuggled from China, has shown citizens what lies beyond the so-called Hermit Kingdom's borders. Kim Jong Il, now 68, is ailing. North Korea has never confirmed that he suffered a stroke in 2008, but his sudden weight loss last year and the persistent paralysis that has left him with a slight limp was visible during his rare trip to China last month. None of his three sons has had the benefit of the more than a decade of grooming Kim had by the time he took over after his father Kim Il Sung's death in 1994, and the regime says it is determined to usher in a "stronger, prosperous" era in 2012, the centenary of the patriarch's birth. Any change in leadership has the potential to be traumatic and tumultuous. A bold attack would be a quick way to muster support and favor in a country where one in 20 citizens is in the military. North Korea has attacked the South a number of times, despite the 1953 truce that ended the devastating Korean War. South Korea has never retaliated militarily, mindful of the toll another war would have on the Korean peninsula. The North's deadliest attack was a bomb smuggled aboard a Korean Air flight, which was decimated over the Andaman Sea in 1987, killing 115 people on board. A North Korean agent captured in connection with that plot said the mastermind was Kim Jong Il, then a few years shy of taking over as leader. Pyongyang has never admitted to any of the post-truce attacks and may have counted on little proof being uncovered when it sent a submarine loaded with a torpedo into the choppy Yellow Sea on March 26. But the distinctively North Korean script scrawled on the inside of a torpedo fragment found during the investigation, among other evidence, was a damning fingerprint. The Cheonan was a symbolic target: The 1,200-ton frigate was involved in a 1999 skirmish between the two Koreas that the South claims killed as many as 30 North Koreans. North Korea disputes the western sea border drawn by U.N. at the close of the Korean War, and those waters have been the site of two other bloody battles since 1999: a firefight in 2002 that killed six South Koreans, and a clash just last November that Seoul says killed a North Korean sailor. The North Korean navy was ripe for revenge. And defectors say it may have needed a boost, since even relatively well-fed military leaders in a regime built around a "military-first" policy had been going hungry in recent years. Not long after the November skirmish, the regime enacted sweeping currency reforms. North Koreans were ordered to exchange a limited amount of bills for a new currency, and to turn the rest over to the government a move that effectively wiped out any personal savings. The reforms were a disaster. There were reports of riots and unrest previously a rarity in totalitarian North Korea. If it was a move to showcase the young, Swiss-educated son's economic acumen, it was a miscalculation. The submarine attack, however, was a stealth move. North Korea's outdated arsenal cannot match South Korea's state-of-the-art systems, but the slow-moving sub somehow went undetected by Seoul's sophisticated radars. Regardless of who ordered the attack, credit for it may have been circulated among top military commanders to build support for the fledging heir apparent, already reportedly dubbed the "Brilliant Comrade." To the broader public, the North characterizes blame for the attack as a smear campaign instigated by the South. And that suits the regime's purposes just fine. There's nothing like a mortal enemy to rally the masses in North Korea, a reclusive state built on the philosophy of "juche," or self-reliance. Washington and Seoul are leading the effort to haul Pyongyang back before the U.N. Security Council for more sanctions or, at the very least, censure. Even that may play right into the Brilliant Comrade's political plans. In the past, the North has used its position as the bad boy of the nuclear world to behave even more badly. Missile tests in 2006 were followed by a nuclear test, its first. And last year, Security Council condemnation was followed just a month later by the regime's second atomic test. International criticism could provide the North with the opening to carry out a third test that would move the regime closer to its goal of perfecting an atomic bomb small enough to mount on a long-range missile. It would be another accomplishment for North Koreans to celebrate, and another achievement for the son to claim. It remains to be seen if and when Kim Jong Il will present his youngest son, a figure so enigmatic that his birthday, age and even his face remain a mystery, to the public as his heir-apparent. The annual gathering of North Korea's rubber-stamp parliament came and went in April without any sign of either the elder Kim, known as the Dear Leader, or the Brilliant Comrade. A rare extraordinary session has been scheduled for June 7. If the precocious prodigal son did indeed plot the attack that plunged inter-Korean relations to their lowest point in a decade and sent world leaders into a huddle on how to avert war, he may finally have a reason to make his political debut.

**Even if the succession process goes smoothly, regime collapse is still inevitable which will destabilize the region** //**Meyers, 10**// //– professor at Dongseo University in South Korea (3/26/10, B.R. Meyers, “ North Korea on the Edge; If the regime collapses, will the rest of the world be ready?” http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704100604575145672974954144.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_RIGHTTopCarousel)//

As for __tensions__ with the south, they __rose again__ Friday __with the sinking of a South Korean naval ship near a disputed maritime border with North Korea, although it wasn't immediately clear what had caused the sinking or if North Korean vessels were involved.__ The latest incident comes days after a conference in which some experts described the Kim dictatorship as being in the first stage of collapse. Americans should be paying attention: __If North Korea decides to go__ __out in a blaze of nuclear glory—and its current penchant for kamikaze rhetoric suggests it might—the enormous number of casualties would likely include many of the U.S. troops stationed on the peninsula. **But even a less-apocalyptic form of collapse could destabilize the entire region**__. Those South Korean experts might be wrong in their predictions, but __the regime seems increasingly unlikely to last out the decade, even if the planned hand-off of power__ to the Dear Leader's son Kim Jong Eun __goes off without a hitch.__ __The economy is only part of the problem.__ North Koreans endured far worse deprivation during the 1990s famine without flagging in their support for the regime. This brings us back to that wall poster, and to the regime's real crisis, which is more ideological in nature than economic. __The information cordon that once encircled North Korea is in tatters.__ Police in the northern provinces try in vain to crack down on the use of Chinese cellphones; citizens circumvent tracking devices by making brief calls from mountains and forests—sometimes to defectors as far away as the U.S. In provinces along the demilitarized zone, many citizens watch South Korean television. Even in Pyongyang, people listen to BBC or Voice of America radio, or view online news surreptitiously at companies with Internet access. __What the masses are learning is incompatible with their decades-old sense of a sacred racial mission.__ They have known since the 1990s that their living standard is much lower than South Korea's. The gap was explained away with reference to the sacrifices needed to build up the military. What the North Koreans are only now realizing, however—and this is more important—is that their brethren in the "Yankee colony" have no desire to live under Kim Jong Il. In 2007, after all, they elected the pro-American candidate to the South Korean presidency. Why, then, should the northerners go on sacrificing in order to liberate people who don't want to be liberated? Unable to answer this question, the regime in desperation has resorted to the most reckless propaganda campaign in its history. This "strong and prosperous country" campaign is nothing less than an effort to persuade the masses that economic life will change drastically by 2012, the 100th anniversary of the birth of Great Leader Kim Il Sung, the father of Kim Jong Il. The official media have dubbed 2010 a "year of radical transformation" that will "open the gate to a thriving nation without fail in 2012." On TV news shows, uniformed students smile into just-delivered computers, and housewives tearfully thank the Leader for new apartments. The media predict even greater triumphs "without fail" for next year. The Juche calendar—which starts with Kim Il Sung's birth year of 1912, from one and not zero—numbers 2011 as year 100, and thus hugely significant. Yet while posters show soldiers and workers arm in arm, refugees describe a sharp rise in public resentment of an army that often steals from farms and factories to feed itself. Refugees are just as credible when they report of a severe fertilizer shortage. The party has responded by demanding that apartment blocks deliver ever more human waste. Alas, the residents don't eat enough to meet the demand. Such misery prevailed in the mid-1990s too, but at least then the regime admitted an economic crisis, even as it mostly blamed the Yankees. Now it talks of a country transforming itself from one year to the next. No dictatorship can afford to lie so stupidly to its people, or to raise public expectations that will be dashed in a matter of months. __Unlike the East Germany of old, North Korea lacks the high walls, incorruptible border guards and surveillance technology needed to keep an entire populace in lockdown.__ Reports of demonstrations against the currency reform may have been exaggerated, but the belated decision to increase the amount of exchangeable currency shows there must have been unrest of some sort. It also indicates that the regime lacks the will to crush it in Tiananmen-style fashion. Kim Jong Il must either find new ways to inspire his people or watch ever more of them cross into China. But this isn't the only domestic crisis facing the Dear Leader. An increasingly infirm 68 years old (69 according to some outside experts), he is already way behind schedule in preparing his son's takeover. It was hard enough for the masses to accept the last hereditary succession in 1994; the official media must still hammer home the message that the Dear Leader was his father's only choice for the post. It will be infinitely harder to install Kim Jong Eun, who even now could walk down a Pyongyang street without being recognized. So the succession process will have to start in earnest by 2012, just as the "strong and prosperous country" campaign is falling on its face. How will the regime try to survive this looming "perfect storm" of ideological crises? Likely by seeking to ratchet up some diversionary tension with the outside world. Making this especially probable is the nascent glorification of Kim Jong Eun as a general in his father's image. He thus needs a perceived military triumph of his own. (Kim Jong Il came to power in 1994 as the hero whose show of nuclear resolve had brought Jimmy Carter on a surrender mission to Pyongyang.) __Last year's nuclear and ballistic provocations have set the bar higher for the regime, perhaps too high. This is the problem with deriving national pride almost exclusively from a nuclear program: The saber can only be rattled, and rattling gets old.__ __Whether the leadership opts for a bigger military provocation, and pushes its luck too far, or just tries to muddle through, with an inexorable decline of public support, the outlook for the country's survival has never been bleaker.__ Regime change? Out of the question. The Kim clan is inextricable with North Korean identity. A homegrown Gorbachev would find it impossible to shift focus from the military to the economy. Why should people toil under the North Korean flag in the hope of attaining a lifestyle that South Koreans enjoyed a quarter-century ago? Why not unify at once, and live in the system that has already proved itself? In view of all this, __one can only hope that the region's main powers are making more serious and thorough preparations for a North Korean regime collapse than they have so far let on.__ The effort to downplay the relevant contingency planning is of course understandable. It is hard enough for the Americans to get North Korea back to nuclear arms talks without admitting that they are readying for its demise. (Kim Jong Il can't have forgotten that Washington once promised him light-water reactors in the confidence that he wouldn't be around long enough to get them.) As for the South Korean government, it doesn't want to frighten its own people, who seem reluctant even to discuss the possibility of German-style unification. Leaks about official contingency plans—refugee camps safely removed from Seoul, for example—seem intended to reassure everyone that unification will proceed almost imperceptibly slowly. __The Chinese__, for their part, __have no choice but to deny that the thought of regime collapse in Pyongyang has even crossed their mind.__ And yet if Western press reports are any indication, __it is Beijing's future role that most troubles American planners.__ In 2007, __a report by__ __the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the U.S. Institute of Peace warned that "if the international community did not react in a timely manner as internal order in North Korea deteriorated rapidly, China would seek to take the initiative in restoring stability.'' The possibility has Seoul worried too.__ __In reading about these contingency plans, one senses a general optimism that North Korea will not go down fighting. Here, too, as so often in the world's dealings with Pyongyang, there is a strong tendency to extrapolate from late Cold War history—to presume that these "hardline Stalinists" will be rational enough not to do anything suicidal. But this has never been a Stalinist state. The orthodox worldview is a paranoid, race-based nationalism with intellectual roots in fascist Japan.__ Related [|Downed South Korea Ship Spurs Questions] Since the East Bloc crumbled away in the early 1990s, North Korea has shown its true ideological colors ever more clearly. Last year it even deleted the word communism from the national constitution, elevating "military first" socialism to the country's guiding principle instead. At the same time it has made ever more extensive use of kamikaze terms and slogans ("Let us become human bombs in defense of the leader") taken almost verbatim from Pacific War propaganda. The official media routinely mock the leaders of the old East Bloc for giving up "without firing a shot," and vow that "there can be no world without [North] Korea." __The possibility of a violent, potentially apocalyptic regime collapse in North Korea within the decade is one that all countries with an interest in the region should keep in mind__. They should also be more conscious of the internal ideological contradictions that make the country's long-term survival impossible. If North Korea must collapse anyway, it makes no sense for China to prolong things; the leadership will only go out with a bigger bang when the day finally comes. As for Americans, we should focus our contingency planning on a worst-case nuclear scenario instead of fretting about Beijing's role on a post-Kim peninsula. A Chinese occupation of North Korea should be the least of our worries.


 * U.S. presence and continued Chinese intransigence on North Korea risks superpower conflict**
 * Emmott, 10** – Independent writer and consultant on international affairs and former editor of The Economist (5/31/10, Bill, The Sunday Times, “China’s stance on North Korea could lead to war,” [], JMP)

Try this quiz. __You lead a rising economic superpower, with ambitions for global political power. You have pledged to pursue a “peaceful rise” and to work through the__ __U__nited __N__ations __wherever possible to maintain international stability.__ Out of the blue__, your unruly neighbour__, an ally and quasi-dependant for the past 60 years, __torpedoes a warship__ of its own neighbour, killing 46 sailors, and then, when accused of this crime, threatens all-out war. __What do you do?__ __Virtually nothing, is China’s answer so far, for that is the superpower and the neighbour is North Korea.__ Officially, Chinese leaders are still “reviewing the evidence” presented by an international team that was asked by South Korea to investigate the sinking in March of the Cheonan, evidence that has convinced virtually everyone else that a North Korean torpedo was to blame. A faraway country of which we know little, is what many are tempted to say of Kim Jong Il’s northeast Asian enclave, paraphrasing Neville Chamberlain’s notorious line about Czechoslovakia in 1938. The North Koreans have a long history of outrageous behaviour, from killing most of the South Korean Cabinet on a visit to Rangoon in 1983, to living off counterfeiting and cigarette-smuggling, to firing missiles over Japan, to testing nuclear weapons twice in the past four years. Recently, in negotiations they have mostly proved to have been after something, and have scuttled back into their “Hermit Kingdom” when they got it. That is why much of the attention given to the Cheonan sinking and the threats of war since March has been devoted to working out what the North Koreans might be up to. Are they after something again, is a succession battle under way, or was the sinking just a mistake? Beyond a few flutters in the stock markets, especially in Asia, much of the world has carried on worrying more about the euro and BP’s oil spill than a new Korean war, despite 2010 being the 60th anniversary of the start of the old one. __It is time to__ __worry rather more, by focusing instead on China and its policy towards North Korea.__ For what China’s reaction should tell us is that China’s interests in the Korean Peninsula are different from those of the West, of South Korea or of Japan. And __in that divergence of interest lies danger: it makes North Korea the likeliest flashpoint for a **potential conflict between China and America****.**__ __On other issues, the Chinese leadership is widely lauded for its fast and effective decision making__ — on bulldozing old city centres, for example, or building motorways and power stations, or giving aid to African governments in return for mining rights. Far better than those fusty old democracies, mutter the admirers. __So why, we should all be asking, are they so slow to make up their minds about North Korea and its acts and threats of war?__ __The official line is that China is concerned about stability in North Korea__ and fears a huge influx of refugees across its long border with that country if Mr Kim’s regime should collapse. __A further line, peddled more quietly by Chinese officials, is that China doesn’t really have much influence over those strange, unpredictable Koreans. So all it can do is take part in the six-party talks__ over North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme, an on-off exercise that gathers together America, China, Japan, Russia and the two Koreas, urge everyone to show restraint, and hope for the best. This line, always pretty thin, is looking ever thinner. __The idea that Chinese security forces would not be capable of crowd control in the border region beggars belief.__ Dealing with refugees might be awkward, and even costly, but as a reason for tolerating military adventurism it is simply not credible. Nor is the notion of Chinese impotence: most of North Korea’s trade is with China, most of its oil supply comes from there, and virtually the only foreign companies in North Korea are Chinese. __It would be pretty easy for China to “keep its boot on Kim’s neck”__, as Americans like to say these days. So why doesn’t it? The answer, surely, must be that __China prefers to keep North Korea the way it is.__ Strategically, __it provides a buffer against Japan and averts the prospect of a troublesome and eventually powerful unified Korea in the future.__ This has been the case ever since Mao Zedong sent in Chinese troops to rescue the North during the Korean War of 1950-53. This preference would not matter much as long as the North Korean regime looked basically stable and was a danger principally to its own people. But this is no longer the case. __Imagine what could happen when Kim Jong Il dies__ — __which__, being 68 and unhealthy, **__he might suddenly do.__** __Suppose there is a struggle over the succession____, one that could turn bloody, given that North Korea is said to be the world’s most militarised society. America, well aware that North Korea has about half a dozen nuclear warheads, will **feel an urgent need to send troops** in to seize nuclear materials.__ South Korea will, like Helmut Kohl in 1989, feel an urgent, historic need to ignore the huge costs and push for unification: the North is family, after all. __And China? My guess is that it would send its troops to the border, and probably across it, “in the interests of stability”, but actually to keep North Korea independent and under Chinese tutelage. **The stage would thus be set for the first 21st-century confrontation between two superpowers.**__ **__This is one of the biggest risks facing the world.__** __To reduce it, China needs to be engaged in open dialogue about North Korea__, its behaviour and, above all, its future. It may not be seemly to discuss what to do when a regime collapses, especially one of an ally, but that is increasingly necessary in the case of the Kim dynasty. __Communication between the Chinese and American militaries remains patchy__, with efforts to set up hotlines and the like slow to come to fruition. **__The chances of a misunderstanding in a moment of tension are high.__** Communication between the political leaderships is better, if still very stilted. __The Cheonan sinking could be the last chance to force China to face up to the fact that its North Korean dependant is not just embarrassing but dangerous, to force it to discuss the future of the Korean Peninsula, to force it to join the 21st century rather than staying stuck in the 1950s. Unless that happens, next time it could really be war.__


 * The plan solves by motivating China and South Korea to effectively influence the leadership transition**
 * Bandow, 08** – Fellow at the American Conservative Defense Alliance and former special assistant to Reagan (9/15/08, Doug, “Dear Leader Goes South,” [], JMP)

Two men have ruled the northern half of the Korean peninsula for sixty-three years. “Great Leader” Kim Il-sung was installed by the Soviets after the peninsula was divided by the victorious powers at the end of World War II. He gradually moved his son, Kim Jong-il, into a central leadership role, and the “Dear Leader” took over after his father’s death in July 1994. But Kim Jong-il has gone missing amid rumors of illness, incapacity, or death. What comes next if the Dear Leader does not reemerge? North Korea offers a rare example of monarchical communism. The so-called Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has the usual attributes of a communist dictatorship: dominant Korean Workers Party, secondary state institutions, and an oversized military. But the DPRK offers a unique twist—amidst a hierarchy filled with anti-Japanese guerrillas, party apparatchiks, and bemedaled generals is an extended family whose members slip in and out of power. At times __North Korean politics has the makings of an Ottoman soap opera, with competing wives and families.__ Kim Jong-il pushed aside an uncle and younger step-brother in his rise to power. He has three sons by two different wives (whether de jure or de facto no one knows for sure) and a son-in-law. His brother-in-law, Jang Song-taek, disappeared in a purge a few years ago but recently reemerged. Suspected illegitimate children wield political power and make economic deals. But if Kim is out, the family reign seems over. The Great Leader went to great effort to empower his eldest son. Jong-il first received public mention as the unnamed “party center,” allowing him to shape the communist hierarchy. But Jong-il’s oldest son is in disgrace. His second son is a couple weeks short of his twenty-seventh birthday. The youngest may be the most promising, but Korean culture venerates age and seniority. None of the sons have taken obvious, let alone important, political roles. Jang ranks second in the party hierarchy, but his influence absent Kim Jong-il is hard to assess. Top officials outside of Kim’s family are closely tied to the two rulers, but are unlikely to offer more than transitional leadership. Number two and de facto head of state Kim Yong-nam (no relation) is nearly eighty-one. The top military leader Jo Myong-rok is Kim’s number two on the National Defense Commission but also is over eighty-two. A better bet might be another, younger general, O Kuk-ryol. Of course, all speculation will prove irrelevant if Kim reemerges, hail and hearty. But he hasn’t been seen for a month and there is no logical reason for him to miss the North’s sixtith anniversary celebrations. While __the political soap opera__ is entertaining, it **__could have deadly consequences__****__.__** Analysts have long speculated on whether Kim was serious about negotiating away his country’s nuclear program and if he had sufficient authority to impose a pacific policy on the military. The nuclear negotiations recently stalled, with Pyongyang growing more belligerent after Washington refused to remove North Korea from its list of terrorist states. Whether this reflects a routine turn in DPRK negotiating strategy, an increase in military influence, or a problem with Kim Jong-il’s health no one knows. It’s tempting to believe that things can’t get worse in North Korea, where an unpredictable, brutal personal dictatorship has left the common people to suffer through mass immiseration and starvation. However, by all accounts Kim is intelligent and understands the challenges facing his nation. And it is conceivable, even if not likely, that he has been convinced of the economic and political benefits to be gained from nuclear disarmament. But if not Kim, then who? Assume his family maintains its hold over power—that might mean continuation of the status quo, though not necessarily. __A collective leadership might exercise caution towards the outside world__, but that likely would doom the nuclear deal as well as further rapprochement with South Korea. __Military dominance could yield a responsible moderate__ determined to create a more prosperous and less isolated DPRK, __but hard-line rule seems far more likely__. Think Burma, for instance. __The most frightening scenario would be a violent power struggle and even national collapse____. Then the best case would be mass refugee flows to South Korea and China. The worst case would be factional conflict spilling over North Korea’s borders, possibly attracting intervention by the South and China.__ Japan and Russia also would be vitally concerned in the outcome even if they remained aloof from any fighting. There’s not much Washington can do as East Asia waits with collective bated breath for confirmation of Kim’s fate. But even if he is alive and well today, a transition will eventually come. And nervous—indeed, panicked—uncertainty is likely to return. Indeed, __should the international geopolitical environment worsen, with__, say, __increased tensions between China and the__ __U__nited __S__tates __as Beijing’s regional influence grows, a North Korean succession crisis could be even more destabilizing.__ **__The best American strategy would be to get out of the way__****__.__** __Without a cold war raging, South Korea is of little security concern to America.__ With the ROK enjoying 40 times the GDP and twice the population of North Korea, __the South can defend itself. Pull back America’s remaining troops, and **Washington could leave dealing with an uncertain leadership transition in Pyongyang to others in the region, most importantly South Korea and China.**__


 * Chinese involvement is key to stabilize Korea – prevents violent collapse, military response by South Korea, North Korea nuclearization and allied proliferation**
 * Bandow, 10** – Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and former Special Assistant to Reagan (5/3/10, Doug, “Taming Pyongyang,” [], JMP)

Second, the United States, South Korea and Japan must develop a unified approach to China built on the sinking of the Cheonan. Even if the North is blameless, __the incident demonstrates that the status quo is dangerous**. Just one irresponsible act from the unpredictable DPRK could trigger a new devastating conflict.**__ And if Pyongyang is guilty, the risk could not be clearer. Until now the PRC has viewed the status quo as beneficial: the DPRK remains a friendly buffer state; a North Korean atomic bomb would not be directed at China; the United States and ROK must perennially go hat-in-hand to Beijing to beg for its assistance in dealing with the North. In contrast, applying substantial political and economic pressure on Pyongyang would risk breaking the bilateral relationship and might spark a violent collapse, unleashing a flood of refugees. The PRC has said little about the Cheonan incident. The foreign ministry called the sinking an “unfortunate incident.” Beijing’s ambassador in Seoul reaffirmed his nation’s commitment to peace and stability. The allied pitch should be simple. As noted earlier, the risks of war are obvious and catastrophic. But __even if peace survives, today’s badly misgoverned DPRK might implode of its own accord__, even without Chinese pressure. __There is a possibility of violent collapse, given the North’s impending leadership transition and apparent signs of public dissatisfaction__, which would have significantly negative consequences for Beijing. __And if Seoul eschews military retaliation, the North’s ongoing nuclear program combined with warlike provocations would place increasing **pressure on the South and Japan to develop countervailing arsenals****.**__ __Beijing should take the lead in forging a new, active policy designed to both **denuclearize the Korean peninsula and promote political and economic reform in the North.**__ In fact, __a Chinese commitment to take a much more active role might help **convince Seoul to choose nonviolent retaliation for the Cheonan’s sinking**__**__.__** Although few people expect the Koreas to end up at war, the risk is real. And unacceptable. The incident should impel a serious rethinking of the current U.S.-ROK alliance as well as the strategy for involving China in the North Korean issue.


 * Advantage 3 is Regionalism**


 * U.S. alliances are unsustainable – Asian powers should develop a regional security strategy that __does not__ rely on the U.S. – stops 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 United States and its European allies could equally happen between the United States 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 United States’ 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.**


 * 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 continues 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.