One thing I wonder is this. MAybe we should just simply not make this our problem.
South Korea is a modern country with a prosperous well fed citizenry of about 50M. North Korea is a Stalinist nightmare of about half that, eating tree bark.
The US force in South Korea is a token, 28,000. The real defense of South Korea is the South Korean army.
Despite his attempts at missiles and nuclear weapons, Kim is no real threat to the US. He is a threat to South Korea and maybe Japan.
So, if no US troops were in South Korea (or Japan) this ceases to be a matter of superpower games and rather a regional issue.
So maybe the real answer is to leave. The South Koreans and Japanese don’t want us there anyway. And it is not the Cold War. North Korea does not have 1500 ICBMs pointed at us. South Korea can defend itself. And considering the differences in size and economy, if South Korea cannot defend itself, it is not worth defending.
