The World Tribune.com relays the bleak assessment of American military officers concerning the future of the Republic of South Korea:
[I]n the next one to five years the Combined Forces Command, responsible for U.S.-ROK operations and training, will be dissolved while the United Nations command, set up in 1950 at the outset of the Korean War, will move to Hawaii.
The implications are dire for South Korea's ability to cope with a crumbling, heavily-armed communist North Korea with powerful anti-U.S. allies in the neighborhood [according to a memo released by the officers].
The forecasts in the communication lead a list of major shifts that...officers view as the logical result of pressure on U.S. forces to leave this now prosperous nation, as well as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's program for downsizing and realigning U.S. forces in Korea.
The good news is that "the U.S. will maintain the so-called 'nuclear umbrella' and will meet its treaty obligations with a promised commitment of air and sea power if the ROK is attacked" - an arrangement that seems strikingly similar, however, to that made in the first half of 1950 when about 500 U.S. advisers remained in Korea to bear the brunt of the North Korean invasion that June.
However, "[t]he question will have to be asked," said the memo, "can the ROK deal with a collapsing NK regime unilaterally without international support." The officer responded in the next sentence: "It is highly unlikely that it can but it is not doing anything to prepare for it now."
The memo concluded with a downbeat history lesson in regional geopolitics.
"Korea will again be the shrimp among whales as the balance of power will be China/Russia on one side and U.S./Japan on the other. Will Korea be able to be the 'balancer' as envisioned by President Roh?"
"I think not," [the memo stated]. "It will have to cast its lot with one side or the other. Unfortunately economics and geography (as well as the Japanese colonial legacy) may rule and...Korea will be pushed into the China camp. The geo-political strategic implications for this...are obvious."
If North Korea is allowed to continue to develop its nuclear arsenal South Korea will be faced with three unpleasant options: 1) develop its own nukes, 2) rely on America for protection, or 3) capitulate. 1) is unlikely and 2) looks increasingly doubtful. If South Korea does yield to the North's bullies, Japan will have a much more difficult time resisting Sino-Korean pressure and intimidation. Much depends on South Korea's resolve, and America's. The key is getting nukes out of the North's hands. The world simply cannot allow them to continue to possess these weapaons.