Author: GIKorea

Anyone who thinks the Afghan withdrawal is a sign of a weakening US commitment to South Korea doesn’t know much about US-ROK relations:

A bipartisan pair of U.S. lawmakers said Thursday the alliance with South Korea remains strong, despite fears that the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan signals weakened resolve on the Korean Peninsula.

Reps. Ami Bera, D-Calif., and Young Kim, R-Calif., gave their assessment of the alliance with South Korea during a virtual panel discussion hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

Bera, a co-chair of the bipartisan Congressional Study Group on Korea, advised policy watchers not to read too deeply into President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan.

“Korea is a totally different country — it’s one of the most developed democracies in the world,” he said. “It’s certainly a developed economy. We have a long geopolitical, strategic relationship and our security commitments are extremely important to members of Congress in a bilateral way.”

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but I don’t see the ROK president fleeing with a helicopter full of cash and the ROK Army completely folding against any North Korean attack. Unlike the Afghan military, the ROK military is professional, motivated, and will fight.

By North Korea standards this was a pretty low key military parade which could signal that the Kim regime still thinks some kind of future deal could be reached:

North Korea held a midnight military parade to mark the 73rd anniversary of its founding, but leader Kim Jong-un did not deliver an address and no new strategic weapons were displayed, according to state media and South Korean officials.

The parade, which began at midnight Thursday, was watched closely by South Korea and others because the North could show off state-of-the-art weapons systems or leader Kim could make a speech about inter-Korean relations or nuclear talks with the United States.

But the parade at Pyongyang’s Kim Il-sung Square featured artillery-carrying tractors and military search dogs rather than intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and other strategic weapons. Also seen were fire engines looking like the same model produced by German carmaker Mercedes Benz.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is a pretty significant technological leap by the ROK Navy:

 South Korea has successfully test-fired a homegrown submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) from a new submarine to become the world’s eighth country to possess the weapon, sources said Tuesday.

The Agency for Defense Development (ADD) carried out underwater ejection tests of the SLBM from the Dosan Ahn Chang-ho submarine last week after successful launches from an underwater barge last month, according to the military sources. 

The locally developed 3,000-ton class submarine is equipped with six vertical launch tubes.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Here is an interesting video from the Korea Times of a Filipina who has appeared in over 60 K-dramas as a weekend gig job:

These fake news laws are slippery slope because who defines what is fake news?:

The International Press Institute (IPI), a global network of editors, executives and journalists dedicated to the protection and promotion of media freedom, has called for the withdrawal of a bill being pushed by the liberal ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) to punish media outlets producing alleged “fake news,” noting that many such laws are promulgated in “authoritarian countries.” 

“In recent years, there has been a rapid growth of so-called fake news laws around the world. Many of these laws have been passed in authoritarian countries,” Scott Griffen, deputy director of the IPI, said in a recent email interview with The Korea Times.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

The long negotiated USFK Cost Sharing Agreement has been implemented:

South Korea will spend nearly $125 million more this year to station American troops on the peninsula, according to a new cost-sharing deal that took effect Wednesday.

The Special Measures Agreement between South Korea and the United States determines the cost split for keeping roughly 28,500 U.S. troops in the country and employing South Korean civilians on U.S. military bases.

Seoul is expected to contribute $1.02 billion for 2021, a 13.9% increase to the $896.62 million it spent the previous year. The renewed agreement will retroactively apply to South Korea’s contribution from last year, which was carried over from 2019 after negotiations for the agreement’s renewal became deadlocked during President Donald Trump’s administration.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.