The U.S. Defense Department has reportedly given President Donald Trump options for reducing America’s force levels in South Korea. When asked about the report, U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper carefully sidestepped the issue, saying that he had ordered no reduction. With the United States and South Korea deadlocked in negotiations over host nation support, a troop withdrawal of some level seems the logical next step for the Trump administration.
The proposal has naturally horrified official Washington, as did the president’s insistence on drawing down forces in such diverse nations as Syria and Germany. There is almost universal agreement across partisan and ideological lines that in foreign policy whatever is must forever be. No matter how the international environment changes, no U.S. defense commitment or deployment can ever be reduced—only, at most, mildly shuffled.
