I found an interesting tidbit in an editorial by Retired US Army General John Cushman, that was posted at The Atlantic. President Carter promised during his campaign to get the US military completely out of South Korea. It ended up not working out so well, for him – the Pentagon stalled, at the time, and Reagan reversed the process. And 35 years later, the US is still in South Korea. And, as I've argued before in my little blog, that's not a bad thing. It's part of the balance of power in this part of the world, obviously, although I don't reject arguments that it probably also at least provides the North one of its favorite excuses for irrational behavior.
My thought, however, returns to more recent deployments of US troops, in places like Afghanistan or Iraq. Why do we need to be so committed to "leaving"? Wouldn't it be smarter, and earn more trust on the part of the sorts of "locals" we're tyring to support, to be committed to "staying," but without the ongoing violence? I mean… I'm not trying to justify that our troops are there. It was a mistake that they ended up in Iraq, without a doubt. And Afghanistan has been managed very badly from the start, too. But… as long as – or now that – they're there, we can't be "short timers" – short timers are not invested in long-term solutions.