1. Press Report concerning Korea after Election of Trump
Trump was elected as a president of the United States on November 8, 2016 against people’s expectation and his improvised statements during the election campaign period are driving the international community into the nervous situation. Korea to which Trump often alluded during the election campaign period is no exception. He criticized that Korea, Japan, and Saudi Arabia, etc. do not share a reasonable defense expenses with the United States.
The Heritage Foundation explained in its 2017 U.S. military power report published on November 16, 2016 that the Korean government shares around US$9billion of military expense with the US government in relation to the US Armed Forces in Korea. It means that Korea is not a free rider.
According to this report, there are at least 3,582 nuclear warheads world-wide and it is presumed that North Korea has 8 nuclear warheads. The United States has 1,797, Russia has 1,582 and France, China, UK, Pakistan, India and Israel have 290, 250, 120, 120, 110, 110 nuclear warheads respectively.
According to the recent press report, BNP Paribas is of opinion that Korea is the second weakest country which will be negatively affected by the election of Trump. BNP Paribas stated that Trump is to seek the protectionism in trade and the increase of interest rate, and it will be a big burden to the Korean economy which has the open foreign trade policy. It added that Trump will be able to utilize the re-negotiation of Korea-US FTA.
2. Analytical ability which a politician needs
Along with the globalization, the global community is being changed into one life zone. The political activities of one state affect those of other states and all states’ political activities are affected by the interaction of each state. Especially, the US foreign policy greatly affects the political activities of other states since the US is currently playing a leading role in the global community. Such a leading role is a pride of the US people. However, Trump's improvised statements without logical and reasonable analysis as a US president candidate pull down such a precious pride of the US people and embarrass the global community.
Politics affects all fields of society and is situated at the top in the fields of social science. Accordingly a politician must have an ability to understand the social science. He should ascertain what problems his state faces through analytical study and clearly explain a solution of these problems to the people. If he could not do so, he would be just a political agitator.
Trump said that he will not get involved in the war between Korean, North Korea and Japan. He emphasized "If they do, they do. Good luck, enjoy yourself, folks". Further his opinion is that Korea and Japan can have nuclear weapons, and NATO is not necessary. Trump promised to the US people that he would make the US a great country once again. But his election pledge can come to nothing due to the improvised and unreasonable foreign policy. The below statistical data would be helpful in explaining the reason.
The US is the number one arms exporter all over the world. The above table shows that the USA's share of volume of arms exports was 31 percent in 2010-14. Also, it was known that the US arms export (from October 2011 to September 2012) exceeded US$50billion (based on the arms purchase agreement).
Korea purchased the arms of US3.8billion from the US for the period of FY2009 to FY2013. Korea also shared the military expense of US$0.8billion with the US government in FY2015 and is going to share that of US$0.9billion in FY2016 with the US government.
Currently 29,041 US soldiers stay in South Korea and 49,430 US soldiers stay in Japan. Further 38,015 US soldiers, 11,425 US soldiers and 9,078 US soldiers respectively stay in Germany, UK and Italy. Total 172,344 US soldiers are staying overseas for the national interests of the US and the international community. The scale of military expenditure in the year 2014 is as below. The US spent 34% of total global military expenditure and its expenditure is much higher than China and Russia.
3. Sudden change of the US foreign policy is never desirable
Since the Second World War, the US has invested lots of military expense in order to end the cold war and maintain the world order and made a great contribution to the aid activities for developing and underdeveloped countries. Korea also received a lot of aid from the United States and has developed its economy partly based on this aid. Accordingly, the US people, especially Whites who have led the US society, could feel a pride that the United States is the number one state in the world from the standpoint of economic and military power. However, as the global community is being changed as one life zone, the international community faces many changes economically and militarily.
Education interchange (such as studying abroad) and economic interchange (such as trade and overseas investment) substantially increased. Such situation started to narrow the gap of knowledge level between countries, and developing countries started to chase the United States. As a result, products which were made by these developing countries started to get competitiveness in the US market and the US enterprises lacking competitiveness faced the risk of bankruptcy. Detroit which was a model of auto industry is an exemplary case. This trend is evidenced by the fact that the market sharing ratio of smart phones made by Samsung of Korea is currently higher than that of Apple of the US.
However, Trump did not recognize this kind of trend situation and excited the low-income US people saying that the current bad US economy is due to the wrongly-negotiated FTAs (especially with Korea and China). The US voters who don’t correctly understand the trend situation would have thought that if the US were to regulate the transactions with Korea and China where the US realizes a trade deficit, the US economy would be boomed. It might have given a favorable result to Trump.
The US people could think why we should still sacrifice ourselves for the development of global community whereas other countries are enjoying the benefits given by the sacrifice of US government. It could make sense. However, although the US government has greatly contributed to the development of the global community for a long time as a global leader, it has also enjoyed a role of a global leader and an economic power thanks to such a contribution.
Accordingly, it is never desirable that the United States changes its foreign policy suddenly and pursues the abolishment or re-negotiation of FTAs causing many problems to the international community including the United States. This is because the abolishment or re-negotiation of FTAs cannot resolve the structural problems of the US economy. The United States should seek a more reasonable and feasible approach to this problem in order to harmonize with the global community.
4. Spread of nuclear weapon is a disaster to human beings
The international community can prosper only when each state acts based on the relationship of reciprocal understanding and trust. Otherwise the disorder would control the global community and as a result the global community could face a disaster. If every state tries to hold nuclear weapons, it can be a shortcut to the disaster since any state can freely use the nuclear weapons and it would become much more difficult to control the nuclear weapons. Thus, the US government needs to play a role of global leader to prevent this kind of worst situation in advance.
The Heritage Foundation report shows that there are at least 3,582 nuclear warheads world-wide. In case where a nuclear war takes place and these all nuclear warheads explode, any life in the world cannot survive the nuclear war.
5. Giving up a role of leader of the global community is against the interests of the US
If the US government gives up its military police function in the global community as Trump said, its allied nations must defend themselves. Under such a situation, it would be difficult for them to buy arms from the US if the US’ arms are not competitive, and they would be reluctant to share the unnecessary expenses by making the US soldiers stay in their territories if it is not effective economically. The nuclear weapons can be a more effective ways to protect their country than ‘purchase of arms from the US’ and ‘station of US Armed Forces’.
If the US government loses its allied friends, severely weakens its military industry and make a total of 172,344 overseas US soldiers jobless, it would be impossible that ‘the US becomes a great country’ which is Trump's election pledge.
The military industry has a great ripple effect like the automobile industry creating lots of jobs. If buyers of US arms decrease substantially and lots of US soldiers become jobless, it will severely damage the US economy. Further if the US does not play a role of a leading country, it can also significantly weaken its power in the trade negotiation such as FTA which is very important to the economic development of the US. Thus, Trump’s election pledge is directly against the interests of the US.
6. The enhancement of military power does not guarantee the economic development any longer
<Scale of export and import per country in the year 2013>
Unit: US$
There has been broadly two ways to economically develop a nation. One is to develop through the best economic policy under the circumstance, and another is to enlarge the economic scale of a nation through the enlargement of economic territory by a war. Although developed countries often used the latter way to enlarge their economic power in the past, this approach could not be utilized any longer nowadays.
Along with the development of science, the global community has been changed into a common living zone and it became possible that enterprises perform economic activities freely anywhere under the legal system which was jointly formed by the global community. Accordingly, it is rarely necessary for enterprises to rely on the military power of their government for the economic advance into another country unlike the past. The above table reflects well the fact that the economic scale has no direct relationship with military power.
The US government has spent lots of military expenses since the World War Two in order to end the cold war and maintain the world order. As of the year 2014, the US government spent 34% of the world military expense and it is a big burden to the US government under the changed global circumstances where the enhancement of military power does not guarantee the economic development any longer. Thus, the US government should seriously discuss this important matter with allied countries and seek out a reasonable solution. Under the changed global circumstance, the necessity of a war was substantially decreased. The military power is now necessary just for the police function (such as prevention of terrorism) other than a full-scale war as long as the globalization exists.
The global community is being operating under the agreed upon legal system and the US government needs to use a ‘step by step’ approach through amicable discussion with related countries. The sudden change of US foreign policy can make all global contributions of the US worthless.
7. Every country needs a leader with the leadership of harmonization & compromise
The thought that the economic effect can be obtained through the enhancement of military power has become old-fashioned. To try to spend more expenses on the enhancement of military power without economic effect is against the economic principle.
The more military expense would result in the more conflicts between countries. As a result, it would make the economic exchange between countries more difficult and cause the decrease of economic effect all over the world. The current international community has a quite different appearance from the past one. Thus, each country or the international community should pursue its economic development through the policy corresponding to the changed circumstance.
In order to succeed under the changed circumstance, a politician should have an ability to drive ‘harmonization’ and ‘compromise’ other than ‘conflict’, and we need a leader who has such an ability to develop our country and global community.
The control of variables is possible in the natural science and the engineering science and thus we could make out a complete solution. Because there are so many variables in the social science and these variables continue to change and interact with each other, however, it is not possible to completely control these variables. This is the reason why we could not make out a complete solution concerning the political and economic problems of each country and the global community.
The assertion that the economic development can be achieved by utilizing certain economic policy is just an amateurism way of thinking. They think so as they don’t correctly understand the way of the world.
When you want to control variables in the social science, you should introduce the system to control these variables. For example, let’s assume that there are 100 variables relating to the current politics or economy and we should seek out a solution on the current political or economic problem. In this case, if we could completely control these 100 variables, it would be possible for us to make out a complete solution. But if we could not control even any one of these, it would be impossible to get any solution. The method to control a variable in the social science is to introduce a ‘system’. Politics and economy are all influenced by the activities of all human beings. Human beings’ activities affect even the natural environment like ‘global warming’.
Accordingly, introducing a system under which a human being acts with the predictability is a method to control a variable and we can get a solution when the control of variables becomes possible. That is to say, when all human beings act within the scope of the agreed upon ‘Legal System’, we can control variables and get a solution. Here lies the importance of ‘rule of law’.
If 90 variables out of the 100 variables can be controlled and the remaining 10 variables are uncontrolled due to the non-existence of system or the impossibility of system introduction, it would still be possible to get a meaningful solution to some extent. These uncontrolled 10 variables should be controlled through ‘harmonization’ and ‘compromise’ ability of a leader.
When an uncertain variable comes into being and there is no system to control it, controlling this uncertain variable is the role of a leader. He should persuade related persons through ‘harmonization’ and ‘compromise’
Where a leader does not exercise the leadership of harmonization & compromise and causes a conflict, it will have a bad effect even on the existing controlled variables and aggravate the situation severely. Here lies the reason why we need a leader who has an ability of harmonization and compromise.
