Do Americans not support SK-US alliance?

42 comments

1. I am not aware of any intention to be anything other than allies with South Korea.

   It is a profitable partnership for both counties both economically and militarily strategically.

2. North Korea is one of the only remaining hostile enemies of the United States. Also South Korea is, frankly, a very nice location to be in strategically, since it gives us a strong foothold near China.

   Unless NK and China both dissolve, I don’t think we’re leaving South Korea ever.

3. What do you base your assumption on?

4. Can’t imagine a reason to abandon South Korea.

5. I think most Americans support South Korea and recognize its strategic importance for both of our countries.

6. I don’t see a reason to abandon South Korea, but I think we could pull back a little

   OP, your county is now twice the population of the North, and you are far more prosperous. You don’t need us to protect you from the North anymore. I support the alliance, but SK should take the lead in their own defense.

7. I think the USA has a lot more reasons to be allies than reasons to be neutral. Theres a lot of built up good will, common ideals and similar economic/foreign policy.

   I have never been to Korea, but i live in the Pacific North West and have nothing but great experiences meeting Korean tourists and immigrants. You all are just great – and your Soju is welcome at parties, too!

8. I hope we stay in South Korea for as long as we are needed to deter aggression in the region or as long as we are wanted, whichever comes first. I cant imagine what its like to live in a country whose neighbor wants to erase you. America is fraught with bad interventions in its history but it is my firm view that the Korean war and subsequent support for South Korea afterwards is one of the best inverventions we have engaged in.

9. Barring the complete collapse of North Korea and China, the US is not going to withdraw from South Korea. SK is widely considered one of our strongest allies outside of the five eyes countries (Canada, Australia, NZ, UK), one that shares mutual values and goals for East Asia, and a country that occupies a strategic position against not just North Korea but China as well.

   South Korea and Japan are the cornerstone countries for our Asian policy, and widely respected by the US foreign policy establishment. I would not at all be worried about the US leaving SK.

10. Samsung alone carries 20% of US market share for mobile phones and 10% for appliances.

    Hyundai and Kia make about 16% of all new cars on US roads.

    Americans love SK products, American government loves SK proximity to our biggest adversaries. I would say the US-SK alliance is on track to be very similar to US-Japan relations.

11. hypothetically, it would be nice not to be involved in a quagmire from the cold war era. but i have nothing against south korea or defending south korea

12. There are numerous economic and military reasons to remain close allies with S Korea. I don’t see that going anywhere any time soon. Will probably remain so for at least decades to come

13. I was stationed in the Republic of Korea for 2 years. Made some nice KATUSA friends. I loved your country and would have done 20 years in the Army if I could have stayed there. Also, I regularly make my own kimchi now. I don’t see the US pulling out ever. It is a great strategic location.

14. Hell Yeah Brother, the free world is the free world. We’ve stood by you for 75 years or so now, I don’t expect we’ll change that any time soon, as long as y’all remain a liberal democracy.

15. I’ve heard nothing about abandoning Korea and nothing but good things about Korea from anyone stationed or visiting there. I expect we will remain in North Asia for the foreseeable future and probably long past that. Korea is considered a friend.

16. These days, it’s hard to tell. We may go into our isolationist hideyhole in a year’s time.

    If a certain candidate does not win, then we will stay in South Korea until your government asks us to leave.

17. Short answer is no. In fact from a military standpoint we would probably like to station even more soldiers and hardware there.

    Being able to base military assets in South Korea (and Japan, Singapore, and the Philippines) is important to the US ability to deter China from attacking Taiwan, challenge their illegal claims to the South China sea, and contain their Navy to the first island chain.

    While China would never as blatent as the Houthi rebels are being right now (at least China pays lip service to obeying international law). We need only look at the crisis in the Red Sea to understand the stakes if the United States and our allies let Chinese aggression go unchecked in that region.

    In short, the US will keep troops in South Korea for as long as South Korea allows us to.

18. Why would we abandon an important ally against North Korea and China?

19. I support it . It’s not something I think about often though

20. Nah, SK is a rock solid ally. There’s been no public talk of that changing.

21. Honestly I think South Korea originates far too much technology for the United States to ever abandon.

22. Most of us don’t know or care enough about it.

23. Most Americans can’t even find South Korea on a map, if I’m being honest. Alliance with South Korea is really not an issue most Americans are invested in at all, aside from occasionally making Kim Jong Un memes.

24. What made you think that?

25. I would say the US and most people in the US are pretty supportive of our alliance with South Korea. Maybe some dolts with no grasp on reality are against it because they think our involvement there is imperialistic, and definitely others think it is a waste of money.

26. As long as China is a geopolitical adversary with clear ambitions to increase their role globally (which is where we are today and for the foreseeable future) and North Korea remains a threat, then the U.S. will have interest in staying allied, regardless of our population’s views. There may be a point in 2+ decades where our trend of increased isolationist sentiment has continued, and we are energy/technology independent from ME+Taiwan. At this point, containment of China will be less necessary, but North Korea will likely remain a threat for a long time, so the alliance will still not be broken that easily if I were to guess.

    I think one of the only things that could damage the alliance (and the same applies for NATO/European relations), is economic protectionism. Economic protectionism is a visible and easy-to-use scapegoat for isolationist sentiment. Even I admittedly have become very disillusioned with the E.U.’s economic protectionism running rampant.

    The most recent examples we saw from South Korea was concerning Netflix/Twitch, where South Korea has enacted policy that disadvantages foreign streaming platforms to an absurd degree with them being charged up to 10x domestic platforms for data usage from the ISPs. These stories/incidents are easy to use to drum up American isolationist sentiment, and I do look upon American leaders that tolerate this and the countries who take advantage of us, much less favorably.

    South Korea’s biggest geopolitical concern regarding America should be if we pull back from the Middle East and there is less stability in the regions they source their oil/LNG (liquefied natural gas) from. [Figures 8 and 10 provide a breakdown on crude oil and LNG sourcing by country.](https://www.eia.gov/international/analysis/country/KOR) If these energy trade relations are disrupted and alternate energy sources aren’t adequately developed, there is cause for concern for South Korea.

    [Here you can see that the U.S. population has increased their favorability towards South Korea.](https://globalaffairs.org/research/public-opinion-survey/americans-continue-back-south-korea) SK’s cultural influence/soft power has aided in growing favorability towards the country, and this likely won’t just disappear any time soon.

27. Strategically and military, South Korea is very important. And I think it’s accurate to say that South Korea is a very close ally. Also, in terms of technology, the US is a big consumer of Korean products. I would say economically, we’re mutually beneficial to each other. Hugely so. Over the last 20 years, Korean culture (music and entertainment, food and skincare) have become incredibly popular here. I have no idea if the average South Korean fully realizes how popular South Korean culture has become here but it has. I think as long as South Korea allows us to have a military presence there, we aren’t going anywhere. I can’t fathom a time that we would ever abandon SK as an ally.

28. Alongside being a solid strategic ally in the region, South Korea is building a lot of soft cultural capital in America. KPop, K-dramas, Korean food, and Korean skincare and fashion products are growing in popularity here. Not to even mention technology and cars. It’s difficult for Americans to travel internationally, especially as far as Korea, but a lot of people want to go. I can’t imagine America would be quick to abandon its alliance with South Korea.

29. We like South Korea a fair amount, it is just that a lot of Americans feel we do far too much around the world and should roll it back somewhat. South Korea is a very strong country, with one of the region’s strongest armies, so do we really need the bases there? Not to mention the social problems around them. Honestly though, it will probably continue into the foreseeable future simply because even more isolationist politicians here despise China and so are likely to want lots of American troops in SK and Japan at least.

30. Will our two extremely friendly countries that share a similar culture, both love baseball and enjoy the same music/media lose our alliance? No, I would say not any time soon.

31. Why would we leave South Korea?

32. I think those in the US military and those that understand the history (educated) do support the alliance.
    Having been to Busan in support of military in the last few years, I see relations stronger than ever.

    Thank YOU for supporting the US. Your country is beautiful and I would love to travel more through it.

33. I can say that as a soldier that was stationed at CRC, the troops love your country and your people. Yall are very friendly and your country is beautiful. I dont see us ever leaving.

34. Most certainly not North Jersey, there’s more or less a small province of Korea here

35. I absolutely support the alliance. South Korea is one of our few “allies” where there isn’t a large amount of the population who are fiercely anti American (I’m looking at you Australia). So far the only Asian country I’ve traveled to is Japan, but South Korea is near the top of the list of places I want to want to visit. I hope someday the best case scenario happens and the entire peninsula is unified again, but considering how much poorer and less developed the North is, that would likely be difficult thing to achieve.

36. The US considers SK one of its closest allies. There are very few groups the US trains and intermixes with. The relationship between the ROK Marines and the USMC is one of the most beautiful Alliances I have the honor of having seen. People who know know and will continue to support being allies and close friends with SK.

37. I for one absolutely support it. It’s good that you plan for the worst, but know that there are many here who support you.

    And Korea is a very beautiful country too, with a lot of history that deserves remembering.

38. We have an alliance with Saskatchewan?

39. The US will never abandon SK while NK exists.

    We love to be the “good” guy against the obvious sociopathic bad guy.

40. Support for South Korea is strong in the diplomatic community, in DC broadly, and in business and culture. It’s the sort of alliance that nobody would even think to question, like that with Japan or the United Kingdom. There’s no real partisan split on the issue, and, hell, Korean-Americans may be becoming a much more important constituency. The case of historically bad policy had more to do with the sometimes strained relations between independent-minded generals in Korea and the United States [Koreagate, looking at you], and while there are some who are mildly peeved by the fact Korea continues to conduct active industrial espionage in the United States, it’s not really a huge deal all else being equal. In retrospect, shutting down the nuclear weapons programme was probably a mistake but it wasn’t apparent at the time, and in any case the United States has maintained a hardline non-proliferation position since basically day one–we wouldn’t even have let the British have nuclear weapons if we could have helped it.

    It’s also a big help that the North Koreans are just *annoying* to deal with. I personally theorize that the United States could probably get more out of North Korea than it does presently because the Kims do respond to incentives, in the way organized crime rings do, but they’ll never allow for truly radical economic development, social changes, or reform, and nor will they hand over their nuclear arsenal, or ever be attractive for foreign investment–all assumptions that Americans periodically have for some reason, not that they’re alone in that. I think even the Chinese much prefer dealing with South Korea than North Korea.

    Anyway, what you say isn’t impossible, but it won’t be because the SK-US alliance in particular is flawed, but rather would be a reflection of domestic political trends and growing insularity. Much as with China, there’s a distinctly isolationist and insular attitude that prevails within a large swath of the American population, and in more populist times it tends to show itself. If South Korea is cut off, it’ll be because Japan and Europe will have been dumped as well. Not fun to think about for anyone, but the possibility is unfortunately out there.

41. I strongly support South Korea, and I would like to keep troops there for as long as South Korea wants them. As soon as South Korea wants us to leave, we should leave.

    I think the world is less safe with nukes, and the more countries that have nukes the more unsafe it is. But unfortunately, any country *without* nukes of their own are at the greatest risk. This means I wish countries would not pursue or gain nuclear weapons, but I can’t really blame them when they want them. I see nuclear armament for countries to be a no win situation. They can’t NOT get nukes, that’s how you end up like Ukraine (among so many other examples). But every time you add a nuke in the hands of someone new, you gain one more chance for someone to actually launch their weapons.

42. 100% support. South Korea is a shining example of free market democracy and we’re here to support you as long as you want it with like minded Allie’s around the pacific.