America's role in Korean Reunification

Recent concerns over Iran have prompted a lot of thinking over whether or not the US is spread too thin. The idea of pulling troops from Korea comes to mind always.
Why are we over there? What are we getting out for that deployment which costs us time and money and political tension? We're making sure Kim Jong Il can't reunite Korea by force. The catch is that we're also keeping both sides from reuniting by compromise. We'll never win if we keep being so horrified that we might lose.

We're never going to get reunification while the North Koreans think that the South is ruled by baby-killing Americans and we'll never convince them otherwise while they're trapped in poverty and locked out from accurate reporting of events; they'll continue to be told that we're keeping them down.

North Korea would be hard pressed to take the South and hold it. We can afford to pull our troops and start negotiating, and in these negotiations we can afford to give and better the lot of those living in North Korea. We need to bring the North Korean people up to a level where communism is holding them down rather than bearing them up. That's when we'll see a willingness to compromise and reach terms of reuinification.

Did you know that the term "3rd world nation" was coined to describe a nation with demographic trends which suggested a weak economic future and a communist revolution? It's true. 3rd world countries are the ones that take on communism or other radical forms. If they weren't 3rd world countries by definition they would not be so radical.


I'm interested in how others see this. Do you think economics can stimulate political change in Korea? Will there be war? Will they always be seperate? Are the nukes a deal-breaker or can we use reunification to make them a non-issue?

[edit on 17-1-2005 by The Vagabond]