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region, would be of none effect.
The intemational chess game of
strategic arms, Hotz wams, could
end "with the triumphant Soviet
shout of'check and mate.'"
KOREA
"~HASEOUT"
IMPACTON JAPAN
The Carter Administration's pro–
posed five-year "phased witb–
drawal" of American troops from
South Korea has once again focused
world attention on the security of
Nortbeast Asia.
The issue was brought to a head in
May when General John Singlaub,
U.S. Chief-of-Staff in South Korea,
was removed from bis post for criti–
cizing the phaseout plan, claiming it
would be an invitation to war. Sing–
laub is not alone in his criticism.
Senior American and South Korean
mil itary officers point to what tbey
feel
is
the bad timing of such a policy
and its psychological impact on the
rest of Asia.
North Korean Premier Kim Il
Sung has never renounced his stated
goal of unifying all of the Korean
península under his control, and
mi li tary observers are asking
whether South Korea is strong
enough to defend itself against a
fu ll-scale communist invasion
launched by tbe Pyongyang regime.
Unl ike past proposals from
Washington to reduce American
troop strength in Korea, the current
effort is prompted primarily by non–
economic considerations. The reve–
lations of bribery of American Con–
gressmen by South Korean agents
as well as the reaction to President
Park Chung Hee's handling of polít–
ica! opponents have created consid–
erable domestic pressure in the
United States for the removal of
most of the 33,000-man U.S. army
and 1,000 tactical nuclear weapons
from the area.
At the moment, it appears that
South Korea would be able to de–
fend itself against an attack from
tbe North. The· Seoul govemment
has around 600,000 troops coro–
pared to North Korea's 430,000-
man army. However, the North out–
numbers the South in reserve
The
PLAIN TRUTH July 1977
strength- three million roen to one
million- and possesses 1350 mod–
ero Russian tanks to the South's 840
tanks. Even more critically, North
Korea has 600 combat planes to the
South's 204, imd for that reason the
Carter Administration has promised
to continue to give South Korea "air
cover" after it withdraws its troops.
The effects of renewed fighting on
the Korean peninsula could not be
confined there, for ultimately the
fate ofJapan would be at stake. Jap–
anese observers such as Hideo Se–
kino of the Japanese Historical
Research Institute point out that if
South Korea fell, almost all of Ja–
pan would come under the radius of
hostile fighter aircraft. Continued
joint Japanese-South Korean con–
trol of the Tsushima Straigh ts,
through which Soviet .East Asían
ships and submarines reach the
Pacific, would also become virtually
impossible.
Confronted with a unified com–
munist Korea, tbe Japanese would
have two choices: launch a rapid
roilitary buildup or become a Pacific
"Finland," a country under domina–
tion ofthe Soviet Union.
London's
Economist
summarized
the real nature of the Korean de–
fense problem in an editorial last
year: "The truth of .the matter is
that the American army does not
keep [its forces] in South Korea for
the.sake of the South Koreáns. They
are there mainly because of Japan–
because a still mi litarily naked Ja–
pan (its army littfe more tban a
third the size of North Korea's)
would bate to see communist troops
only lOO miles away across the Tsu–
shima Straights, and because most
of the rest of us would bate to see a
Japanese army suddenly expanded
six times over."
THE CARIBBEAN:
A"RED LAKE"?
The growing inft uence and prestige
of Fidel Castro's Cuba threatens to
undercut whatever inftuence Wash–
ington has had among tbe nations
and nations-to-be in the Caribbean
Sea, once called "America's lake."
In the years since Fidel Castro
introduced radical socialism to the
area, eigbt former British and Dutch
territories there have gained full in–
dependence. Another six expect in–
dependence within the next decade.
The political common denominator
in nearly every case is a marked
lurch to the left. The new mini–
states inherited multiparty systems
of government, but now left-wing
politicians in nearly all of the 14
countries either are in power, share
it, orare in powerful opposition.
Many of these leaders see the Cu–
ban model of rigid social-and eco–
nomic planning as a real altemative
to American-style capitalist democ–
racy, and as a way to solve- or at
least contain- the enormous prob–
lems they nearly all share- poverty,
overpopulation, and unemploy–
ment. Here are a few examples of
the new política! wave throughout
the Caribbean:
• Guyana, the former British col–
ony on the northern coast of South
America, has become a virtual com–
munist state under the leadership of
Prime Minister Forbes Burnham.
Foreign business has been nation–
alized and eighty percent of the
economy is under state control.
Guyana's leadership openly es–
pauses a Marxist-Leninist philoso–
phy.
• Jamaica's radicalization is sec–
ond only to that ofGuyana. Prime
Minister Michael Manley has prom–
ised to "bury Jamaica in socialism."
Along with Guyana, Jamaica is
seeking formal economic ties with
Comecon,
the "Common Market of
Eastern Europe." And, again along
with Guyana, Jamaica has signed a
number of economic, scientific, cul–
tural and educational exchange
agreements with Cuba, leading the
Wal/ Street Journal
to speculate that
the country is on its way · toward
becoming a Cuban satellite.
• While Trinidad and Barbados
have moderate governments, the
main opposition parties in each case
are Marxist. Former Barbados
Prime Minister Errol Barrow has ac–
cused the U.S. of trying to "destabi–
lize" the governments of the
English-speaking Caribbean be–
cause of their developing relation–
ship with Cuba. Cuba had also used
Barbados as a refueling stop last
year when it ftew troops to Angola.
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