Posted by max161
Each thread tends to start with a slice of a larger problem and then expands from there. Fuchs opened this thread focusing on the North Korean military and questioned its ability to be a viable threat. Accordingly the the discussion initially focused on how to deal with the potential threat. Reunification is an interesting topic, but first I want to touch upon your cherry picking of experts.The other point is we continue to talk about the Korean Problem with little regard for Korea. Again, many of the comments in this string are seemingly made in the spirit of big brother knowing how to solve all and again with little understanding of Korean culture, politics, tradition, history (and emotions)of the Korean people. I cannot emphasize enough how many of these comments sound just like discussions of Afghanistan by those who knew nothing of the culture, politics, tradition history (and emotions) of the Afghan people. And we see how things have turned out for us in Afghanistan.
Admittedly there is little discussion on the ROK view since like ours it is inconsistent and divided among party lines. Like many you seem to assume reunification is going to happen, but there are others who also claim some expertise in the region that disagree with that assessment. They see no sign whatsoever that the DPRK is going to collapse (as we have been hearing for over the past 20 years) and believe two separate Koreas is in the best interests of most concerned. Maybe it will, maybe it won't, but the larger point is relying on those we label as experts can actually impede gaining understanding of the situation, because those we label experts tend to have strong views on a topic that are hard to sway even when emergent facts call their views into question.
This reliance on cherry picked experts has resulted in bad policies in the past when we later learn that the experts were wrong. I recall one school of experts on Iraq telling us the Iraqi people would embrace democracy and that there was no ethnic tensions in the country, while another school of experts called the shots accurately. Everyone is qualified to evaluate the available evidence and question the experts. Expert views should be sought out, but not blindly accepted. All experts have one key shortcoming which is they're human and have biases that skew their best efforts to be completely intellectually honest.
Obviously many, if not most, Koreans in the North and South want to reunite the Koreas, but of course have different views on what a united Korea should look like. Putting that to the side for a minute, I wonder what nations (I hope the U.S. is) are thinking a reunified Korea will mean to the region and the world? Would two the world's largest militaries united into one under one the world's strongest economies lead to greater regional stability or instability? How would Japan feel about it? Would China or the U.S. have more or equal influence with a united Korea? If the U.S. pulled it troops out of Korea after reunification how would that our ability to deter hostilities in the region? If the Koreas united, would there be a justification for a large ground force in East Asia? Of course most of these questions can't be answered factually until after events unfold, but we can only offer opinions on what we think will happen and what will be in our interests. East Asia with a unified Korea would require a new security paradigm for all concerned.
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