Parhe wrote:Seleucas wrote:
South Korea can take care of itself; it has a powerful military and a much greater economy than its neighbor, and it should take steps towards economic integration/rapprochment such as with the Kaesong Industrial Region. Having the US make threats of overthrowing NK and practicing war games (including simulations of pre-emptive artillery strikes or nuking Pyongyang) really will not solve anything.
I do think that the US buggered things up by arbitrarily dividing Korea to begin with.
Sunshine Policy ended for a reason; North Korea refused to change, unless you count hiding its nuclear tests better. Despite South Korea doing everything to help North Korea none of the South's grievances were met except family reunions, except the North continues to use it as a took; North Korea continues punishing defectors, working on nuclear capabilities, and torturing its prisoners, many of them there for reasons that wouldn't be considered crimes in most developed or even undeveloped nations. South Korea has tried these things time and time again since the fall of the Soviet Union but even during then the North has made threats to attack and overthrow the south which, despite what you say, has not been made by either the South or America since the Cold War. Also, war "games" makes sense; North Korea is weaker than the South but it can still do a lot of damage and it constantly threatens to attack the South, doing so every few years. I will say though, if America withdraws the South should develop its own nuclear weapons. It would finally give Korea something to do with its leftover fuel, fixing its storage issue (artificially created by the US)
The US pretty much came out in favor of regime change with the Axis of Evil speech, and North Korea has been nudged towards collapse through soft means such as financial sanctions and more. It also seems imbalanced to respond to (largely empty) threats of violence with actual demonstrations of the power to annihilate a country.
In any case, I would agree that the North is definitely not making things easier. It might be a good idea for the South to defend itself with its own nuclear weapons instead of the US, as you suggest; I really do not see how the US can help to resolve this ongoing issue with its military presence, and it seems that it only exacerbates things by appearing as a foreign interloper to NK and China.
