There's A History To What Trump's Up To Regarding Troops In Korea

Months later, North Korea's invasion of the south underscored the peninsula's importance for the Cold War and dispelled Washington's perception that the Soviet Union would not resort to overt military force to further its geostrategic aims. It prompted a total commitment to repel the north; 36,913 US military personnel would die in only three years of the Korean War, not incomparable to the approximately 58,000 fatal casualties of the final nine years of the Vietnam War (1964-1973). The war ushered in America's permanent military presence in South Korea.

Since the end of the Korean War, the US-South Korean relationship has been underpinned by a Mutual Defense Treaty. Under Article IV, the US has maintained tens of thousands of troops in the country.

Nevertheless, presidents attempted to cut back on the US presence throughout the Cold War. President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered a phased reduction down to 55,000 troops over several years, though numbers grew again during the mid-1960s.

In 1971, President Richard Nixon withdrew another 20,000 troops from the country as part of the“Nixon Doctrine,” which placed the burden for non-NATO allies' defense primarily on the countries themselves. The withdrawal policy was buttressed by myriad assurances of assistance and further military aid, which partially assuaged South Korea's anxieties.

The withdrawals under Eisenhower and Nixon were carried out in a way that secured at least grudging South Korean acquiescence, but President Carter's decision was different. Candidate Carter first floated the idea of a total withdrawal of ground forces from Korea on the campaign trail. His thinking was seemingly influenced by Nixon's earlier successful drawdown.

Carter was concerned to achieve cost efficiencies in the military, apparently skeptical of the need for US troops in Korea and believing that a strengthened South Korean Air Force could defend the country. Once in office, he announced a phased withdrawal of all US ground personnel over several years.

A firestorm soon erupted. Influential sections of Congress objected to the withdrawals, passing legislative amendments directing the president to consult and update Congress on any withdrawals. Public sentiments were confusing at best, with a July 1977 poll showing that only 34% of Americans surveyed supported withdrawing ground forces from Korea, while a March 1978 poll showed 61% of Americans favored Carter's plan to remove forces on a phased basis.

Unusually, the most vocal opposition came from the military. In a newspaper interview, Major General John K. Singlaub, the chief of staff of US forces in Korea, bluntly declared that a withdrawal on the announced schedule“would lead to war.” Carter viewed Singlaub's comments as insubordination. Singlaub was reassigned to a post in the United States, but the cacophony of criticism continued.

A month before Singlaub's interview, in not-for-attribution-comments, US Army General John W. Vessey, later to become Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, told anot her interview,“We all were deeply opposed to Carter's policy as increasing the risk of war.”

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General George Brown, testified before Congress that Carter's plan was not in alignment with a Joint Chiefs plan to withdraw 7,000 troops over five years.

One public rationale the administration offered for the withdrawal was that the military balance between the two Koreas was satisfactory even without a US ground presence. Pressure mounted further when a revised US military intelligence assessment was leaked, which estimated that North Korea's military was significantly stronger than previously projected. In the end, only 3,600 troops were removed before the withdrawal plan was scrapped in 1979.

Beset by calamities like the Iran hostage crisis abroad and stagflation at home, Carter's administration developed a reputation for ineptitude. The debacle over Korea only deepened the sense of dysfunction. He would lose reelection to Ronald Reagan in 1980.

Carter's policy on Korea represented the most comprehensive attempted revision of the US-South Korea military relationship, but ultimately Carter's sentiments were not totally unique; despite Carter's bitter experience, numbers would continue to fall in the following decade.