Not in My Backyard

How I Learned to Start Worrying and Hate the Bombers

By Jonathan Joseph Chiarella

Those in the world of Korean education have likely encountered the national rule about not having military training in the air during special examination periods. The practice reflects a community spirit to national education, true, but it reflects other facts, too. Air force bases are a “thing” in South Korea, and few people enjoy being around military aircraft.

The siting of air force personnel and equipment as well as the staging of drills seemingly form the classic “NIMBY” (not in my backyard) problem. As a society, we need garbage dumps, crematoriums, prisons, and military bases, but no one wants to have such blights too close to them. Everyone wants the benefits of such facilities but simultaneously without the negatives.

Has America solved NIMBY-ism? Considering the mismatch in housing supply with demand, as well as parking minimums and R-1 zoning, not at all. Huge deserts in Nevada let military drills pass without notice, but Korea cannot cheat its way out of its military issues. Love them or hate them, air force bases on this peninsula are not disappearing soon. At the same time, the ROK Forces and the U.S. Forces Korea are the hot potatoes no one wants to hold.

Maybe we can agree that military operations should not be near heavily populated areas, like a “metropolitan city.” At least, we can reduce their total size and their usage. Politicians and hopefuls have been working towards (or promising to strive for) moving the military base out of Gwangju. In April, a national law set in motion the removal of military air bases from Gwangju and Daegu. One would hope that would reduce complaints from locals regarding noise, pollution, occupation of swathes of land, or the seedy “entertainment” venues that can spring up around bases. But we can ask why military bases exist at all – beyond providing jobs and shots for action films.

Military bases prepare for war. No guarantee exists for imminent combat, but most countries mind the eventualities. The U.S. military has used or uses Yongsan, the DMZ, Gunsan, Osan, and Seongju, not Dokdo or Byeonsan-bando. The decision comes down to strategic thinking and hard power.

Better to have the warriors ready and not need them than to need them and not have them, right?

Seongju County in North Gyeongsang Province became the site for the THAAD “missile defense” and long-range surveillance systems. THAAD has a very small negative footprint. It is good to have THAAD in order to coordinate the missile theater with the U.S., right? Foreign superpowers can deter attack. Russia will not commit suicide by invading a NATO member in Europe. The U.S. and other allies are treaty-bound to intervene, and the chance of nuclear war has made many a leader re-think major strategic options over the past seventy-eight years.

However, the presence of installations like THAAD will mitigate these alluring aspects of the foreign presence. The installation site becomes a crucial, even legitimate, military target. Exacerbating the problem, President Yoon advocated a full and permanent installation, and one that will not move as easily as human resources – and repeated delays mean that the U.S. still retains operational control over the ROKF in wartime. Anyone attacking Korea could occupy Seongju or carpet the surrounding area in an attack. This would weaken the U.S.’s position without risking nuclear retribution. Such an attack is a remote possibility, sure, but so is the premise that THAAD could fully neutralize an all-out surprise attack or that Kim Jong Un would lay waste to the entire peninsula and doom his own comfort by igniting an offensive war on a whim. Accounting for worst-case scenarios can be complex.

Consider neo-arch-conservatives here who would prefer the ROK to remain a statelet or some U.S. colony. Even these caricatures would have to consider what they would tolerate in their own backyards, and whether the price would be worth paying. “We need a military base somewhere in the country for our protection” must be reconciled with “we need to be far from the front lines” as well as “we need to consider how foreign entanglements incur unwanted attention.”

Any resolution to any military base or airport will involve coordination with the national government, Gwangju’s own government, and the county or city targeted for the moving of operations. Simply offloading operations to Muan County in South Jeolla Province is practically and ethically fraught when only 38 percent of Muan residents support the plan. This raises the larger question of how military bases should operate, be they run domestically or by the U.S. Kicking the can down the road just makes some other hapless community become the sacrificial lamb. For the logical endpoint, look at Japan and the cynical exploitation of Okinawa, and imagine how Beijing would treat Okinawa in a proxy war with the U.S.

Source Jeon, S. (2023, June 14). 무안군민 38%, ‘광주 https://www.flickr.com/photos/pspd1994/52722922954/)

이전’ 찬성, Yonhap News, https://www.yna.co.kr/view/ AKR20230614029100054.

The Author

Jonathan J. Chiarella grew up in New York. He holds a BA in history (Rochester) as well as two MAs (Chonnam, Florida) and a PhD in politics (Florida). You can spot him riding the river trails or read his analysis of current affairs related to Honam or international relations.