The Writing is On the Wall

From the Chosun:

An Asia specialist with the U.S. Congressional Research Service has presented a report to Congress suggesting the U.S. Defense Department is pushing to change the military command structure as a means to drastically reduce the role of the U.S. Forces Korea. Larry Niksch drew up the 16-page report after North Korea’s volley of missile launches earlier this month, saying part of the plans is thought to be putting the U.S. Forces Korea under the U.S. Army First Corps whose headquarter is to move from Washington State to Camp Zama in Japan’s Kanagawa Prefecture near Tokyo.

That would also mean lowering the rank of the USFK commander and changes in the UN Command in Korea, which have taken orders from a four-star general since the Korean War.

Niksch’s analysis could mean that moves to downgrade the military relationship with South Korea reportedly instigated by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld are well underway. A former high-ranking official in the Bush administration told Grand National Party lawmaker Park Jin last week that Rumsfeld wanted to bring the Korea-U.S. alliance down to a level similar to Washington¿s relationships with the Philippines or Thailand.

The US military’s relationship with both Thailand and the Philippines consists of joint training exercises and not large permanently stationed troops. If this proposal gets approved the US-ROK alliance would for all intents and purposes be over. I think that will probably mean the US-ROK relationship would then be composed of a routine deployment of a Stryker brigade for annual exercises with the ROK Army and maybe keeping the PATRIOT batteries in place until the ROK Army can buy their own. The way it looks now the Air Force will be gone soon unless the Korean government gives them the bombing range they need to train their pilots. No matter what happens I think the writing is clearly on the wall.