Colonel (ret) Douglas Macgregor is a decorated combat veteran, the author of four books and a PhD. He is also Executive Vice President of Burke-Macgregor Group LLC, a consulting and intellectual capital brokerage firm based in Reston, VA. He was commissioned in the US Army in 1976 after one year at VMI and four years at West Point.
His groundbreaking books, Breaking the Phalanx (1997) and Transformation under Fire (2003) has influenced change inside America’s ground forces. His doctoral dissertation, The Soviet-East German Military Alliance, published as a book by Cambridge University Press in 1989.
In 1991, he was awarded the bronze star with “V” device for valor under fire with the Second Armored Cavalry Regiment that destroyed a full-strength Republican Guard Brigade on 26 February 1991. The Battle of the 73 Easting, the U.S. Army’s largest tank battle since World War II is the subject of his book, Warrior’s Rage. The Great Tank Battle of 73 Easting.
Macgregor has testified as an expert witness on national security issues before the House Armed Services and House Foreign Relations Committee. He is a frequent guest commentator on radio and television.
If you are having problems viewing this video with Firefox, try using Google Chrome or we've uploaded the video to YouTube @ https://youtu.be/XmVviPFCDNs
President Trump needs a strategy that rejects the notion that an American military presence on Korean soil is essential.
Douglas Macgregor
Is there a diplomatic solution to the crisis on the Korean Peninsula? Yes, there is.
President Donald Trump should tell Chinese president Xi Jinping that
the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from the Korean Peninsula and the
subsequent neutrality of a reunified Korean State are contingent on
Beijing's support for a reunified Korean Peninsula under Seoul's control
and leadership. Washington’s readiness to underwrite a reunified, but
neutral, nonaligned Korean State reassures Beijing that the Korean
Peninsula will not be used again as an invasion route into China.
Washington’s offer can succeed because it will incentivize the
Chinese leadership to cooperate with Seoul, Washington and Tokyo.
Rightly or wrongly, Beijing fears the American military presence on the
Eurasian landmass and would welcome its departure. However, Beijing also
knows that unless Seoul takes control of North Korea and its oppressed
and starving masses, North Korea’s government will remain an economic
burden and a permanent catalyst for unnecessary conflict with China’s
neighbors and the United States.
President Trump discovered in his talks with President Xi that
Beijing has no desire for war with the United States. China wants to do
business with America, but if Washington strikes North Korea, Beijing’s
readiness to cooperate in the resolution of the crisis will vanish.
Worse, Beijing will conclude that its own security demands a much closer
military relationship with Moscow—an arrangement that is, from China’s
viewpoint, unnatural and undesirable. Clearly, Washington must avoid
this outcome lest it obstruct future cooperation between the United
States and China, the world’s two largest economies.
Now why has this idea not surfaced inside the Trump White House? Why
would President Trump who currently demands that Seoul pay for the
deployment of additional U.S. Forces to Korea not seek a way to secure
Korean unity and freedom by disengaging U.S. Forces from the peninsula?
After all, the Republic of Korea's economy is fifty times the size of
North Korea’s. In economic terms, North Korea ranks behind Ethiopia, a
sub-Saharan African State. Despite North Korea’s grossly exaggerated
claims of military capability, North Korea is a dying state.
One of the reasons may be that President Trump’s advisors, like most
people inside the Washington Beltway, oppose any change in the postwar
status quo. Perhaps, they are privately committed to America’s
unofficial, but very real overseas “empire” of military-economic
dependencies? If so, they confuse a temporary military presence
resulting from a stalemate brokered by President Eisenhower in 1953 with
long-term American strategic interest.
During his 1952 election campaign, Eisenhower promised to go to Korea
for a firsthand look at the situation on the ground. However, he made
no promises regarding how he would end a deeply unpopular war that had
killed more than thirty thousand Americans by 1953. When he came to the
presidency, Eisenhower was determined to halt the growth of the federal
government, balance the national budget and lower the rate of inflation,
but the Korean Conflict put those priorities on hold.
Soon after arriving in Korea, President Eisenhower discovered that Gen. Mark Clark, the four-star commander of U.S. and allied forces
in Korea wanted a large-scale frontal assault against the Chinese and
Korean armies. He also wanted to conduct simultaneous air and sea
operations against the Chinese mainland. Clark was convinced these
operations would produce a stunning victory.
Eisenhower was not so sure. Eisenhower may have known that Moscow,
not Beijing, approved the North Korean invasion of the South. But
Eisenhower definitely knew how wasteful and self-defeating Japan’s 1937
invasion of China had been and how China’s determined resistance during
World War II fatally weakened Japanese military strength.
Instead of widening the war as General Clark recommended, Eisenhower
ended the conflict on the best terms he could get, insisting that Korean
reunification would eventually be achieved with political—not
military—means. In May 1953, 69 percent of Americans polled approved of
Eisenhower’s actions, though, 55 percent still thought the war had not
been worth fighting.
The world has changed since the Korean War. China and the United
States are trading partners on a scale few imagined. Unlike Germany,
Japan is ready to assert itself as an independent world power and play a
key role in securing stability in Asia. Vietnam is no longer incurably
hostile to the United States. But Americans are no less disinclined
today to wage war in Asia than they were in 1953.
The point is simple. It’s time for President Trump to craft a new
strategy, one that rejects the notion that an American military presence
on Korean soil is essential to Washington’s global leadership. It’s
not. Things have changed.
Posts
