Right after President Roh Moo-hyun of South Korea met with President George W. Bush in Washington, a leading newspaper in Seoul commented: "The Korea-U.S. summit showed, if anything, what an alliance on the brink of divorce looks like."

During the meeting on Sept. 14 and afterward, little happened that would warrant changing that assessment by the daily Chosun Ilbo. United States relations with the Republic of Korea have been on a downhill slide for five years and the Roh-Bush meeting did nothing to turn that around despite a show of amity between the two presidents.

As in the Sherlock Holmes mystery featuring a dog that didn't bark, what didn't happen provides telling clues. The two presidents were in the Oval Office for less than an hour. With amenities, photos, and particularly translation, that left less than 30 minutes for conversation. That was supplemented with conversation over lunch, to be sure, but that too was short.

Their joint press conference lasted only 19 minutes and one of the four questions allowed was unrelated to Korea. White House press secretary Tony Snow's briefing that afternoon gave only passing notice to the meeting. There was not the usual background session for the press with "senior administration officials" filling in details of the conversation.

Perhaps most telling was the absence of a joint statement or communiqué. Those diplomatic papers are usually negotiated and written by staffers ahead of time, filled with platitudes, and rubber stamped by the leaders. Even so, they provide a marker on the road that the two nations are traveling. Roh and Bush evidently didn't have enough of import to say to put it down in writing.

Further evidence of the insignificance of the meeting came, curiously, from North Korea. The North Korean regime often blasts whoever is in office in Seoul for being a lackey of the U.S. and the U.S. for treading heavily on the Korean peninsula.

This time: Silence. Nothing came out of Pyongyang in the days following the Roh-Bush meeting. Reading Pyongyang's intentions is tricky at best but maybe the North Koreans just didn't want to risk offending Roh, who has sought to accommodate or even to appease them.

The heart of the matter in U.S.-ROK relations is the continued deployment of U.S. forces on the Korean peninsula. American military officers and defense officials recently have talked more freely, if in private, about reducing the size of the contingent in Korea and possibly even withdrawing the troops completely.

Their thinking is that the U.S. cannot afford to have troops committed to only one area of operations, such as Korea. The U.S. is tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan and needs fresh troops to rotate in and out of there. ROK forces are capable of defending their nation against North Korea. And rampant anti-Americanism in Korea makes the position of U.S. forces precarious.

The Chosun Ilbo focused on this, noting: "The dismantling of Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command, which has assured the defense of South Korea since 1978, has become irreversible." That command, headed by an American with a Korean deputy, was set up to assure a military principle, unity of command. For U.S. and ROK forces to operate independently could be disastrous.

Roh has insisted, however, that wartime control of ROK forces be vested in the South Korean government. He has suggested that the turnover be in 2012 but has apparently been surprised by the U.S. saying that the change should take place in 2009. At that time, the combined command would no longer be needed.

Moreover, 2009 seems to be the year in which the U.S. would begin to draw down its forces further than already planned. The U.S. currently has 29,500 troops in South Korea. That is scheduled to drop to 25,000 in 2008. Starting further cuts in 2009 would seem to be in order.

The Chosun Ilbo raised a pertinent question in its commentary, saying the Roh "administration says taking over sole troop control will not lead to additional cuts in the U.S. Forces Korea or a cut in American reinforcements in case of war. But how can that be guaranteed?"

Answer: It can't be guaranteed. Roh and his regime seem to have lost much of their standing with the Bush administration, the Defense and State Departments, and the Congress. South Korean leaders and large segments of their public seem not to realize that five years of constant criticism and demonstrations against the U.S. have consequences.

Richard Halloran is a Honolulu-based journalist and former New York Times correspondent in Asia. His column appears weekly in Sunday's Focus section.