well as S. Korea, and places like Italy and Germany for that matter. They can certainly pay more of their "fair share" to their own defense. But that can only come with agreement/interest from them to do so, and our willingness to let them do so (e.g. Japan getting Nukes for example).

We can't just simply cut our defense efforts/spending there with no plan to replace those efforts by other means.

I'm not saying either approach is the right one. That's way above my pay grade. But we benefit from a lot of influence over those places because of the current set up. Just as we do in Israel.