Some news off of the Reuters wire:
South Korea and the United States have agreed to pull out all American troops from Seoul as part of a global realignment plan of the U.S. forces, South Korea’s defence ministry said on Saturday.
The decision to move U.S. troops south, away from the border with North Korea, was taken on a request by Washington and after a meeting between the two sides in Hawaii, a ministry spokesman said.
The U.S. military presence in the centre of the South Korean capital over the past 50 years has been a constant source of anti-U.S. sentiment in South Korea.
Of course, the presence of US troops in Seoul never had any military value. A North Korean ground invasion would overrun them along with the rest of South Korea’s conventional forces. The only good they do there is as a trip-wire. In light of that role, this makes sense:
The Korea Times newspaper said there would likely be only about 50 U.S. soldiers at a liason office adjacent to South Korea’s defence ministry building in central Seoul.
It’s just as easy to be symbolic with 50 troops as it is with 100,000.
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