Typically, nations have a foreign policy that benefits its people, except for the United States. Until recently, Americans have been so wealthy that they could afford a more aesthetic foreign policy. Now, trillions of dollars in debt, among other problems, one wonders if Americans should be a bit more pragmatic. Nearly every military and economic relationship made by the USA must be re-evaluated, over the next decade.
First on the examination stand should be South Korea. The fashionable guess is that Americans think it wrong for North Korea to have invaded South Korea. Is that really the reason? Subsequent invasions and genocides have drawn little but yawns from American policy makers, and sometimes in places with more obvious resource interests. Having paid the price of 50,000 dead, maintained a permanent armed garrison, extended a unilateral defense agreement, and made itself a nuclear target, the United States has never ascribed a benefit. What does South Korea's defense do for Main Street?
Is it mineral or other natural resources that keep the USA in South Korea? Thoughts of obtaining control over some mineral rights in North Korea have been long abandoned, courtesy the Chinese intervention in the Korean war. And South Korea has essentially no mineral resources.
Could it be trade that keeps the USA committed to South Korea? Trade with South Korea is entirely unprofitable. South Korea exports shiploads of consumer goods to the United States, and like other asian countries, imports little in return. Indeed, talks designed to allow American companies greater access to South Korean markets caused riots around that country.
Is it tradition? 50,000 Americans died in defense of South Korea - perhaps we should not abandon that which they fought for? First off, the sacrifice of those men did not buy American ownership. We can't say "we lost South Korea", because it certainly isn't ours. Secondly, why we would throw our children into a future war solely because their grandparents whirled bloody around the same! I doubt few veterans would want that for their grandkids. Finally, we've done this before. 200,000 men died fighting Germany, and another 200,000 died fighting Japan. The USA not only gave those countries back to their people, but actually paid to partially rebuild the infrastructure that it destroyed, either through favorable trade arrangements or direct grants. Vietnam was abandoned altogether.
There is the containment, or domino theory. Some say Americans defend South Korea to contain Chinese communists from expansion. This theory runs into some problems : First South Korea has developed its own rather impressive set of trading relationships with China, and, Chinese communists pay far less in taxes than their American bourgoise counterparts. Or, could it be a question of historic alliances? South Korea is hardly the ally that the English are. How many South Koreans fought with the USA in Iraq, as compared to the British? Not many.
As a counterweight? Some would argue that the defense of South Korea acts as a deterrance to China. But this is a two way street. If a US exodus from South Korea provoked a resumption of the Korean war, then, it becomes a China problem, not an American one. On the other hand, strong US hostility to North Korea could provoke a war with China.
There is almost no reason for the USA to continue its military commitment to South Korean. The USA should withdraw its land forces from South Korea, averring that any conflict that erupts be handled by the United Nations. Present American forces in South Korea are but tripwires anyway. Unlikely to survive an initial confrontation, the deaths of these soldiers would give an otherwise uninterested USA nearly a mandate for war - at least until the people came to understand the cost of such involvement. We do not need to invent Pearl Harbors.
To provide political cover, a withdrawal from South Korea can be taken in response to South Korean protests over the United States. Perhaps a riot caused by trade, perhaps a petty crime of a soldier stationed there, all could provide the spark necessary to exploit this change in affairs.