I thought this article from the JoongAng Daily was rather interesting.
In a recent meeting with CIA Director Robert Hayden, South Korean Minister of defense Kim Jang-soo expressed that Seoul was feeling squeezed by Chinese and Japanese military expansion. The fact that this subject arose when conversation traditionally has centered on North Korea, speaks to growing concerns in the ROK about the changing security dynamic in the region. The article speaks to a number of trends in the Northeast Asia security environment and regional development (as it pertains to a U.S. role), and I felt that it shared some similar points with Selden's article for this week.
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8 comments:
It's not surprising that China's expansion is making Korea (as well as Japan) nervous. In other classes, we've talked a lot about the potential for an arms race between China and Japan, the possibility of Japan going nuclear, but we've never really discussed Korea in the same context. How does Korea's standing military compare to the US troops stationed there? or to Japan's Self Defense Force?
Do people discuss the potential for Korea going nuclear in the same way they talk about the possibility with Japan? I'm guessing I will have to look into this in the future.
The transfer of wartime operational control was very controversial in Korea. Although I believe that Korea should have a right of wartime operational control, as many oponents against the transfer, I think it is too premature for the transfer of wartiem operational control. As the minister concerned, the Roh administration just weakened Korean national security.
On the one hand, China is expanding its military; on the other hand, China still has a lot of social problems. To me, Wen Jiabao government is very devoted to solving those problems. The saying of "China threat" is a bit exaggerated.
I would also agree that, despite the hoopla over its million man army, China's military threat is overrated. Japan and China both spend about $45 billion on defense each year; Korean spends about half that.
Korea won't be able to keep pace with China or Japan so that's why I agree with snowume that Roh is a fool, er, careless, with regards to security. The US spends about $900 billion per year on defense. It's good to have the US on your side in a fight.
edit: Sorry, I meant to write that the US spends over $500 billion. In any case, it's more than the rest of the world combined.
Did you know that Bermuda spends $4 million on defense? I was surprised, not because of the puny number, but because I had no idea Bermuda had a military.
I just attended a national strategy study group for Japanese researchers in DC organized by the Japanese Embassy and SDF top officials. At least from their presentations and our discussions, Japan's SDF/Defense Ministry are not too worried about the regional arms race itself, but about how Japan maintains the interoperability with the extremely high-tech US military. The SDF recognizes itself as almost the only military in the world that can support the US in its regional and global operation from a technological viewpoint (leaving the constitutional constraints aside), and the help/cooperation of the South Korean military is out of their calculation even in the Korean penunsula contingency senario.
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