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Comment by lolgas | Hacker News Reader

I would love to see the US devote a huge portion of foreign aid to this development. Probably going to write my senator about this. Check this to see if your senator is on the subcommittee for East Asian Affairs, and write them about spending on the unification of North and South Korea ->

http://www.foreign.senate.gov/about/subcommittees/subcommitt...

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It's not really in the U.S. best interest to push for unification. A unified Korea makes justifying a large military presence in Korea very difficult especially with large U.S. forces about 1200km south on Okinawa and 500km east on mainland Japan.

The situation in DPRK is a key piece of leverage in our AP policy and without it we lose some amount of influence in the at a time when the US and CN are vying for the region's economic alliances. Given China's recent run-ins over the South China Sea Islands I would also stand to reason that Japan is also not that keen on losing a large U.S. force in Korea either.

These issues will likely only amplify over time as China continues to grow both as an economic and military power -- the U.S. will need to continue to strengthen it's presence in the region and a large part of that is flexing its military clout.

>It's not really in the U.S. best interest to push for unification

Yes it is.

>A unified Korea makes justifying a large military presence in Korea very difficult

Exactly.

> I would love to see the US devote a huge portion of foreign aid to this development.

With one party in Congress opposed to almost all revenue and spending increases, and preferring the current 'sequestration' scheme, it seems there is little chance of this. The best way to help Korea is to solve our internal political problems.

EDIT: And if we don't help, China will, giving them great influence and greatly weakening ours.

Just the US military mission in South Korea costs $1.1 billion a year. Dealing with the North Korean situation would make most of that spending completely unneeded.

Even without North Korea, I can't imagine the US giving up a military base within spitting distance of mainland China anytime soon.

More American troops are stationed in Germany than in Korea, and Germany has been united for over 20 years.

Ongoing cost of the U.S. bases in Korea isn't likely an issue. You have to house those troops somewhere and bringing them back to the U.S. would require building and/or expanding of existing domestic facilities so the economics would make keeping the existing bases ideal.

I'm not sure how it works for the US army but don't people get "mission" wages which are many times the base wage they'd get if they were at home?

They get hazardous duty pay if they are serving in a hazardous zone, I dont think they get anything extra for serving at a peaceful base, no matter where it is.

Not an expert but based on my research it doesn't seem like this is a meaningful number at an individual level or at the aggregate base level: http://www.militaryrates.com/military-pay-incentives

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