What are the arguments for and against US forces in Korea?

[yavoon]

Originally posted by Q Cubed

I'd also like to point out one more thing. its a fallacy to think that replying to a point rebuts it. That would imply that arguments could go on forever. infact it is entirely possible to have intellectual disagreement. I think thats a concept u miss. I have noticed the vigor to with which u think u rebut everything. Though I think u fail often to see the broad picture. instead trying to overwhelm ppl w/ facts.

example. when this first started I proposed giving nukes to japan in order to increase the nuclear players in the region from just china. to taiwan, s. korea, japan and china. u responded to this many times by violently declaring that this would cause an arms race. then responded saying that I had not refuted that it would cause an arms race. but if u look at what I wrote. I infact suggested that we start an arms race.

[Odin]

If China takes over Taiwan we should declar war against China because they invaded an ally of the US. You don't turn your back to an ally! If they use nukes against us we will take them down with us. we'll show them a little Sun Tzu. :banana: :banana:

[Q Classic]

well 5 warheads/missile. I think its like 15 missiles/sub. tho I could be wrong(easy to look up). at any rate yah. nuclear annhilation sucks.

even with 15 nuclear strikes, china would still be able to rebuild and retaliate with enough force to vaporize every major city of japan and skorea as well as a significant portion of the countryside. i fail to see the gain here, as it's still not mutually assured destruction: it would, at best, qualify under what is heinously termed as "acceptable losses" in nuclear strategy.

china ain't giving up its nukes though.

i never said it would, nor did i expect it to, and i certainly didn't exactly say i wanted it to.

and I did say the peace was unstable. infact thats one of the centerpoints of my argument. that the region as a whole is very unstable. and that this patching it soto speak w/ american might. While it will work as long as america is as strong and as willing as it is today. is not something that if I were an enemy of china I would rely on.

i never refuted your statement that the peace was unstable; rather, you refuted my belief in it. that is what i was responding to.
as for seeing china as the enemy: currently, none of those countries sees it as an enemy, but rather a threat and a potential hegemon which they have little power to stop without america's help. even with nuclear weapons, they would not be able to restrain china should it so choose to exert its power.
if i were an opponent or rival of china in the region, i would seek to align myself to them in either a neutral or friendly manner, because there's no way in hell, no matter how powerful my weaponry is, that i'll be able to sufficiently defend my country from being wiped off the map.

I will state again that I propose a more robust system capable of handling itself.

what you propose as a more robust system, i refute as a more unstable system.

WHEN america is no longer the world super power. mind u when america is no longer willing we will be in the UN condemning what china has done w/ GREAT VIGOR! we will even write up many proposals saying how bad china has been. and probably even second them, leading of course to them being ratified!

the united states can not second its own motions. as the un currently stands, china has the veto power, meaning that none of those motions would ever be ratified.

I'd also like to point out one more thing. its a fallacy to think that replying to a point rebuts it. That would imply that arguments could go on forever. infact it is entirely possible to have intellectual disagreement. I think thats a concept u miss. I have noticed the vigor to with which u think u rebut everything. Though I think u fail often to see the broad picture. instead trying to overwhelm ppl w/ facts.

i am seeing the broad picture, and this is what i see:
china's economic growth, should it so continue, would eventually bring so much latent power to china that no amount of weaponry would stop it from being able to exert its influence over korea and japan, let alone taiwan and southeast asia. creating an unstable arms race with nuclear weapons would not only introduce elements of more devastating weaponry, but do nothing to truly check china's capacity for might.
i'm well aware that not every reply rebuts it. however, every single reply of mine has consistently pointed out logical gaps and alternative logical conclusions, all of which would be rebuttals by any stretch of the imagination. indeed, rebuttals do not preclude the existence of intellectual disagreement, but are a clear sign of it.
look, if you're going to arguy procedure rather than material, please at least get procedure mostly right... i'm still waiting for an example of an ad hominem attack that i've made against you.

example. when this first started I proposed giving nukes to japan in order to increase the nuclear players in the region from just china. to taiwan, s. korea, japan and china. u responded to this many times by violently declaring that this would cause an arms race. then responded saying that I had not refuted that it would cause an arms race. but if u look at what I wrote. I infact suggested that we start an arms race.

not only did i reply by saying it would cause an arms race, but i replied by saying it would increase instability in the region. have you missed that salient point of my rebuttal in every reply that i've written? in previous arguments, you did not agree that it would cause an arms race; now you are agreeing. that's fine, but you consistently fail to see that my point is that introducing weapons of mass destruction would further destabilize an already unstable region. how many more times do i have to make that point? a system with more nukes, in this case, would not make it more robust, but more prone to failure.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Q Cubed

well 5 warheads/missile. I think its like 15 missiles/sub. tho I could be wrong(easy to look up). at any rate yah. nuclear annhilation sucks.

even with 15 nuclear strikes, china would still be able to rebuild and retaliate

[yavoon]

the most unstable nuclear scenario that exists is when one country believes that it will not be retaliated in kind(see the only time nuclear weapons have ever been used).

An aggressive china w/ the conventional superiority and a nuclear monopoly is not a good solution to stability in the region. in so far as countries wish to remain independant. I suppose that u could simply want the chinese equivalent of pax romana. that WOULD bring stability to the region. Though I'm not sure that the taiwanese would be appreciative of it.

[Q Classic]

what, tingkai? china has far more capacity to absorb "acceptable losses" compared to the other east asian nations. do you deny that?

yavoon, india-pakistan grew more unstable after they developed their nuclear weapons, not less. that is why a nuclear nkorea would be such a destablizer, particularly since it would propel the democracies into the nuclear arena.

as for chinese dominance: of course the taiwanese wouldn't appreciate a communist china being the dominant force of asia. the question is not whether they would appreciate it, but whether they would be able to sufficiently defend themselves from it, and the answer to that, unfortunately, is no.

[GePap]

The great problem for the Mearshimers of the world when they think of China, is that they assume China must be contained, and always point to its immense possbility. But only ther US can in theory contain China (sk too small, Russia not rich enough, Japan getting old) in the futurre, but there is nothing really the US can do, since it can not launch a pre-emptive war, it can not try to damague China's economy cause it makes a lot of a cards fall down around the world, in fact, there is little we can do to "stop" China, if that is even really necessary. In theory, the only balance will be India, but then why isn't India an issue?

[Drake Tungsten]

In theory, the only balance will be India, but then why isn't India an issue?

India isn't much of a balance to China; the Himalayas provide a formidable enough geographic barrier to preclude most conflict between India and China. Japan, Russia and South Korea have a better chance of acting as an effective counter to China than India.

[yavoon]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
what, tingkai? china has far more capacity to absorb "acceptable losses" compared to the other east asian nations. do you deny that?

yavoon, india-pakistan grew more unstable after they developed their nuclear weapons, not less. that is why a nuclear nkorea would be such a destablizer, particularly since it would propel the democracies into the nuclear arena.

as for chinese dominance: of course the taiwanese wouldn't appreciate a communist china being the dominant force of asia. the question is not whether they would appreciate it, but whether they would be able to sufficiently defend themselves from it, and the answer to that, unfortunately, is no.

well to use ur india-pakistan analogy. its like India already has nukes. and has taken over the conflicted land. lends stability yes. but I don't think the pakistanis would like the stability it lended.

I don't think the taiwanese would appreciate ur defeatism towards their cause either.

[LoneWolf]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Q Cubed
[

Qcubed-They are not already? And why is it our responsibility to prevent it?

in response to lonewolf, and to explain things to yavoon even further:
in a situation where there is already a present arms race, and one side escalates it, you don't throw gasoline on the fire.
as for preventing another regional hegemon: it's not our liberal responsibility to prevent it. it's our realist duty to. if we allow another regional hegemon, be it china, india, russia, or, hell, australia, we will be allowing another nation to post a grave national security threat. it is best to try and quash any potential national threat before it becomes one.
----On the contrary, as Reagan showed, that is EXACTLY what you do.

[

And allowing the NK's to take over SK is NOT the same as conceding Chinese dominanace in the region. As Gepap (God, I never thought I would praise Gepap) points out so well, the Chinese do not even control the NK's, let alone anyone else

allowing nk to take over sk is not giving chinese dominance in korea. i never said that china controlled nkorea.
conceeding chinese dominance in the region would allow them to become regional hegemon. from the korean side of things, i don't mind so much: we'd be bringing back the center of gravity from the west to east. it's my american side which takes issue with it.
-----Well, my "American side" is not troubled.

just what the Hey do we care about SK anymore, anyway?

you might not. but it happens to be the 12th largest economy in the world. that, and it holds quite a few high tech companies within its borders. not to mention that it has a good deal of american military hardware that it produces under license... or would you like to see certain less-than-friendly nations able to manufacture fly-by-wire jet fighters...? face it, skorea is integrated tightly enough to the western world that its loss would be quite problematic, if not devastating, to the western economies and security.
-----It would be a mere inconvenience, added cost to be sure, but no great problem, and in the long run we would be better off.
[]

----Well, this became something of a mess, but I hope I made my points.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Odin
If China takes over Taiwan we should declar war against China because they invaded an ally of the US. You don't turn your back to an ally! If they use nukes against us we will take them down with us. we'll show them a little Sun Tzu. :banana: :banana:

The PRC knows that the US extends it's defensive guarentee to the ROC and that is why the ROC continues to exsist 50 years after the end of the civil war. I can think of three times where the PRC seemed set to invade Taiwan and all three times the Americans moved navel forces to prevent that from happening.

The PRC cannot launch an amphibious attack upon Taiwan unless it controls the Taiwan strait and the open seas around Taiwan (thus preventing sea based carriers from counter attacking). That currently is not possible for china to do when faced with the American 5th fleet, the Taiwanese defensive fleet, the Japanese fleet, and the British fleet. The second thing the PRC would have to do is massively update it's air force which is antiquated compared to all of its potential rivials. Sure, the PRC has lots of Mig-21s but they were designed in the 1950's and they haven't been updated since.

[yavoon]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by LoneWolf

Originally posted by Q Cubed
[

Qcubed-They are not already? And why is it our responsibility to prevent it?

in response to lonewolf, and to explain things to yavoon even further:
in a situation where there is already a present arms race, and one side escalates it, you don't throw gasoline on the fire.
as for preventing another regional hegemon: it's not our liberal responsibility to prevent it. it's our realist duty to. if we allow another regional hegemon, be it china, india, russia, or, hell, australia, we will be allowing another nation to post a grave national security threat. it is best to try and quash any potential national threat before it becomes one.
----On the contrary, as Reagan showed, that is EXACTLY what you do.

[

And allowing the NK's to take over SK is NOT the same as conceding Chinese dominanace in the region. As Gepap (God, I never thought I would praise Gepap) points out so well, the Chinese do not even control the NK's, let alone anyone else

allowing nk to take over sk is not giving chinese dominance in korea. i never said that china controlled nkorea.
conceeding chinese dominance in the region would allow them to become regional hegemon. from the korean side of things, i don't mind so much: we'd be bringing back the center of gravity from the west to east. it's my american side which takes issue with it.
-----Well, my "American side" is not troubled.

just what the Hey do we care about SK anymore, anyway?

you might not. but it happens to be the 12th largest economy in the world. that, and it holds quite a few high tech companies within its borders. not to mention that it has a good deal of american military hardware that it produces under license... or would you like to see certain less-than-friendly nations able to manufacture fly-by-wire jet fighters...? face it, skorea is integrated tightly enough to the western world that its loss would be quite problematic, if not devastating, to the western economies and security.
-----It would be a mere inconvenience, added cost to be sure, but no great problem, and in the long run we would be better off.
[]

----Well, this became something of a mess, but I hope I made my points.

the only other solution if u don't allow taiwan/s. korea/japan to defend itself. is to simply station american lives between the chinese and them. in a conventional scenario this is w/ carrier battlegroups mainly. in a nuclear scenario this is w/ los angeles and new york. and to do this in perpetuity.

[Q Classic]

the only other solution if u don't allow taiwan/s. korea/japan to defend itself.

they are defending themselves.

i give up arguing with you people. take the americans out of there, and nuke the entire godforsaken region.

[Drake Tungsten]

i give up arguing with you people. take the americans out of there, and nuke the entire godforsaken region.

I don't want to waste our nukes.

[LoneWolf]

Originally posted by Q Cubed

the only other solution if u don't allow taiwan/s. korea/japan to defend itself.

they are defending themselves.

i give up arguing with you people. take the americans out of there, and nuke the entire godforsaken region.

Well, we agree, then.