Resolved: The US Federal Government should remove military presence and economic aid from S. Korea

Rebuttal 1: My opponent’s observations I will break this down as simply as possible within sub-points. a. My first contention My opponent has four different responses that I will address. First, he responds that the validity of Global Fire Power is weak. I concede this after looking back at the website and would like to support this point with new evidence. If we look toward the Telegraph in September 2015, we can see the military from North Korea described as such: “North Korea remains reliant on a predominantly obsolescent equipment inventory across all three services,” is the verdict of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.” http://www.telegraph.co.uk... I will also concede that North Korea may have a larger population of people. However, given the equipment of the regime, it would be hard to determine that North Korea has the potential to easily take over South Korea considering the fact that the equipment is considered obsolete. I will give an example. “On paper, the Stalinist state’s air force possesses 563 combat-capable aircraft; in reality, every one of these planes was grounded for a short period in 2014 thanks to problems with maintenance and serviceability.” http://www.telegraph.co.uk... Also, International Business Times has recently published an article in 2015 about the viability of the North Korean military as well. The results include soviet-era firearms, an air force that could be taken down by South Korea, and according to the Pentagon, an aging navy as well, which is composed of submarines. Also, I will concede that is some ways North Korea is strong on the ground. However, let us look toward the fact that North Korea has ostracized itself from the rest of the world, losing important allies such as China to South Korea as China started becoming frightened of the nuclear program of North Korea which has led them to initiate sanctions on trade and energy as well as talking about denuclearizing North Korea through peace talks. However, trade between the countries remain high, these tensions are a starting point to a weakened relationship. http://www.cfr.org... We can also see another incident which has rocked the boat with China with the recent testing of a nuclear missile described as such: “Not only did Mr. Kim ignore China’s entreaties, sending Mr. Wu home empty-handed. He did so emphatically, ordering the launch a day earlier than expected so that it fell on one of China’s most important holidays, the eve of the Lunar New Year.” I can assure you that the actions of North Korea will ostracize itself with China, thus meaning that South Korea will be protected. In fact, we jeopardize the security of South Korea given this article from the Council of Foreign Relations when it states: “In 2010, China reacted strongly to the ROK-U.S. joint military exercises in the wake of North Korea's two provocations, and even identified the ROK-U.S. alliance as a regional security threat.” http://www.cfr.org... This means that the longer we continue our operations overseas the longer we can expect anger from the Chinese government. Secondly, he brings up the nuclear capabilities of North Korea, stating those to be the main problem as opposed to traditional military. However, the RAND Corporation would beg to differ as written in 2012: “North Korea has likely launched Soviet/Russian-made missiles (that are old but proven designs) to maximize the appearance of performance. North Korea may never have tested missiles from its own production, and any such indigenous missiles cannot have noteworthy reliability or accuracy. It cannot be ruled out that North Korea has nuclear warhead designs for its missiles, but without actual testing, the reliability of these warheads has to be assumed to be low. The main purpose of the program seems to be political — to create the impression of a serious missile threat and thereby gain strategic leverage, fortify the North Korean regime's domestic power, and deter other countries, particularly the Republic of Korea and the United States, from military action.” http://www.rand.org... The North Korean regime has the military program for one reason, to gain political leverage, not substantial power, meaning it is a concern, but not a threat large enough to need a standing force in South Korea for. b. My second contention I have stated that the military needs to be elsewhere and I will continue with this argument. However, what I meant to put into my argument was that we are harming our ally, which harming our ally would mean lessened relations with an important power in Asia that symbolizes democracy and what can happen with American help. Relocating our troops elsewhere and harming people elsewhere is inevitable as we need to fight the real enemy in the Middle East and establish military presence elsewhere to guarantee military intelligence in important locations. The main focus should be that our relations with this country are needed and the military presence invoking protests shows how it is actually harming them. Of course, I will explain why it is important. It is because of the fact that if South Korea resents us, it would lose us as an ally which would mean that North Korea would be able to conquer the country. c. My third contention My opponent claims an offense skew has taken place, however, my third contention is simply nothing but listing examples of the fact that our troops are better used elsewhere, such as in the Middle East. Remember, my opponent has stated: “He can't guarantee that these troops will be taken from South Korea and moved to someplace they would be used better.” Thus, this contention is of no consequence besides stating that the conflict in the Middle East is of more importance than the one in East Asia. All my opponent needs to prove is why removing the presence from South Korea would be problematic to our interests in that conflict outweighs the conflict of the Middle East. Rebuttal 2: Actual points My opponent has put his points into four points, I will attack each one. a. First point Yes, sanctions will raise the volatility of a nation, but that does not simply mean we need a military force in South Korea. After all, we have a military base in Japan and since you conceded that North Korea does not have the capability to attack the mainland we can respond to any action against our allies with equal force to what North Korea would do. After all, we are superior to their military. b. Second point My opponent cites a National Review article that stated that we would see a power vacuum that would leave China more powerful in that region. However, he does not link the Philippine’s conflict and South Korea’s conflict. South Korea is much more stable economically and militarily as opposed to the Philippines. c. Third point My opponent has stated that militarization would happen to the rest of the countries surrounding South Korea, and while a tendency for this would be true, I never stated this. I simply stated that regardless of US influence, South Korea would be a strong military power as it already is. d. Fourth point My opponent has stated that alliances backed by commitment decrease conflict and I am inclined to agree. However, we are in a commitment backed relationship with South Korea regardless of our military presence due to the fact that we still can step in if a conflict were to arise. North Korea already knows this and will stay clear of attacking South Korea. Rebuttal 3: Economic aid I will address this quickly since I am running out of room to write. However, we can see that because of the fact that economically, South Korea is sound, we no longer need US Aid to go there is no reason to continue giving aid. This can be easily demonstrated by the following fact: “In 1987, South Korea transitioned to a democracy. That same year, after over two decades of solid economic growth, South Korea became a donor of official development assistance (ODA) providing $25 million in foreign aid. Contributions increased steadily, with annual percentage increases that often ranged from 30% to 79% for the next 20 years. By 2009, ROK contributions reached $816 million. It is important to note that these ODA numbers don’t include aid to North Korea, which would make these amounts far larger.” http://www.aspistrategist.org.au... South Korea has become so economically sound that it can give aid to other countries. With this in mind, why do we need to continue giving aid if the country is developed enough to aid itself? Also, my first contention has listed some of the improvements via the Heritage Foundation. We need to realize that the money is not necessary anymore and that we have done our job. With this in mind, we must affirm. Thanks, I await your response.