Judging by media interest, the U.S. Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) seems to make bigger news here than even in America. This should surprise few, considering this country's almost absolute reliance on the United States for its defense. But it is hard to know whether most domestic analysts' seemingly knee-jerk reactions to it are based on long, habituated ways of thinking or a deep, astute analysis of the changing political and military situations in the 21st-century world.
The 2010 edition of the QDR, which is issued by the Department of Defense every four years mainly for budgetary purposes, calls for, among other things, shifting from conducting two major wars simultaneously to being engaged in smaller but more nagging ``hybrid wars" with enemies that are often combinations of foreign governments and insurgents in international hot spots.
Hence the need for greater mobility, which would require the American troops that have long been stationed in one place, like the U.S. Forces Korea, to move in and out of their present posts more freely. In short, U.S. troops are aiming at becoming a modern day cavalry of the West, and Korea is finding it is no exception from the new U.S. strategy.
Behind it is the U.S. confidence that it can sufficiently assure the security of South Korea with just an extended nuclear deterrent, because North Korea's conventional military might has long been no match for the South's, as has been repeatedly confirmed in recent naval skirmishes. So linking this strategic change, which has been fixed since the Bush administration, to Seoul's scheduled takeover of wartime command in 2012 may appear patriotic but is actually somewhat beside the point.
The static presence of U.S. troops throughout the world, including here, has long been losing support both in and outside of America, due to controversy about status of forces agreements, environmental regulations and anti-American sentiment.
Korea's excessive focus on wartime command has led to its relative negligence of the strategic flexibility issue, however. Yet this country can get involved any time in a possible U.S.-Chinese conflict over Taiwan, as shown by the recent escalation of tension between Beijing and Washington over America's weapons sale to the island state. The U.S. troops' movement in and out of Korea has also much to do with the nation's military sovereignty.
Political and military situations around the world are changing rapidly these days particularly in this part of the world, as evidenced by China's emergence to almost equal status to the U.S. and Japan's rearmament and attempted diplomatic independence from its post-war patron. Some security hawks here might say the resurgence of the two Asian giants is the reason for Korea to stick to its ally across the Pacific, a strategic point even North Korea's Kim Jong-il once acknowledged by citing the possible need for continued presence of U.S. troops on the Korean Peninsula even after its eventual reunification.
It is doubtful, however, whether the military alliance with the world's strongest power necessary means Korea has to entrust its self-reliant defense to it, overburdening the latter. At a time of global change in the balance of power, it is all the more important for Korea to reduce its reliance on one country while refraining from overly antagonizing another, unlike what the Lee Myung-bak administration is doing now by trying to put off the transfer of wartime demand and threatening a first-strike against North Korea.
True alliance is possible only when all involved parties are self-reliant.