Category: Books

Of all the excerpts given to the media there is hardly anything new he is disclosing because it has been widely reported President Trump has threatened to pull out USFK if South Korea does pay more for US-ROK cost sharing:

 U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to pull American troops from South Korea if Seoul did not pay US$5 billion under a defense cost-sharing deal, his former National Security Adviser John Bolton said in his memoir.

In “The Room Where It Happened,” set to be published Tuesday, Bolton recalled an Afghanistan-related meeting that took place last August ahead of the start of Special Measures Agreement negotiations between South Korea and the United States.

“Get out of there if we don’t get the five billion-dollar deal (for South Korean support of U.S. bases),” Trump was quoted as saying. “We lose $38 billion in trade in Korea. Let’s get out.”

Trump’s initial demand for $5 billion has been widely reported as the two countries remain deadlocked over how much Seoul should pay for the upkeep of 28,500 American troops stationed on the peninsula.

Yonhap

Here is something new that hasn’t been heard before, that President Trump allegedly call Kim Jong-un a “psycho”:

At the meeting, Trump also called the “war games” with South Korea a “big mistake,” referring to the allies’ combined military exercises.

“You shouldn’t have let them go on,” Bolton quoted Trump as telling him. “I’m trying to make peace with a psycho,” he added of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

You can read more at the link.

Here is the latest headline from John Bolton’s book:

U.S. President Donald Trump didn’t want South Korean President Moon Jae-in to join him during his third meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) in June 2019, according to John Bolton, the former U.S. national security adviser, in his memoir.    
   
“The Room Where It Happened,” the Bolton memoir set to be published Tuesday, details the three Kim-Trump meetings and the considerable amount of energy expended by Bolton to thwart any U.S. concessions to North Korea.  
   
In a tweet on June 28, 2019, Trump — who was on an official trip to Japan and Korea — offered to shake hands and say hello with North Korean leader Kim, which led to the impromptu meeting days later on June 30 in the inter-Korean truce village of Panmunjom. This marked the first time a sitting U.S. president stepped onto North Korean soil, and took place during Trump’s visit to Seoul for a summit with Moon.    
   
According to Bolton, “Trump wanted Moon nowhere around, but Moon was determined to be present, making it a trilateral meeting if he could.” Bolton had “entertained the faint hope that this dispute with Moon could tank the whole thing, because it was certain Kim didn’t want Moon around.” 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

The Blue House is obviously very unhappy with former White House National Security Advisor John Bolton’s new book:

The office of President Moon Jae-in on Monday strongly criticized former White House National Security Adviser John Bolton for his “distorted” account of what happened in brisk summit diplomacy last year involving the leaders of the United States and the two Koreas.

Chung Eui-yong, director of national security at Cheong Wa Dae, said in a statement that “A considerable portion of it is distorted.”

He played it down as based on what Bolton had seen from his “own viewpoint,” not “accurate facts,” accusing him of unilaterally disclosing details of diplomatic consultations based on trust among relevant governments.

Chung said it represents a violation of the basic principle of diplomacy, which could harm the sincerity of future negotiations “very seriously.” (……..)

On Moon’s assessment of the North’s proposed dismantlement of the Yongbyon nuclear complex as a very meaningful first step” to enter an “irreversible stage of denuclearization,” Bolton, known for his hawkish approach on Pyongyang, even reportedly wrote in the memoir that it was “schizophrenic” idea.

The Cheong Wa Dae official said Bolton may be schizophrenic himself.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Here are some excerpts from John Bolton’s upcoming book which for people following Korean issues, at least from the excerpts appears to be nothing new:

U.S. President Donald Trump told North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during their June 2018 summit in Singapore that he was open to lifting United Nations sanctions on the regime and would think about it, Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, was quoted as writing in his upcoming memoir.

In his book, “The Room Where It Happened,” which is due to be published next week, Bolton writes that Kim told Trump as they were leaving the meeting that he was glad the two had agreed to follow the “action for action” approach in exchanging North Korea’s denuclearization for U.S. concessions, according to Sue Mi Terry, a former CIA analyst who currently works for the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.

Kim asked if lifting U.N. sanctions would be next, and Trump responded that “he was open to it and wanted to think about it,” Terry wrote on her Twitter account Thursday. “So Kim left with optimistic expectations.”

On South Korea-U.S. joint military exercises, Trump repeatedly complained about how expensive and provocative they are, and how he viewed them as a waste of money, Bolton continues in his book, Terry said.

“So when Kim said he wanted the U.S. to reduce or eliminate exercises, Trump said he would override the generals and do so,” she tweeted.

“Neither Kelly, Pompeo, nor Bolton — who were sitting right there! — were consulted and of course not Mattis (who wasn’t there),” she added, quoting the memoir. “No consultations with S Korea either. Trump just gave in to Kim without consulting or notifying anyone.”

Yonhap

Here is what Bolton had to say about the Singapore summit:

Trump debated between a small deal and walking away.

He decided “walking away” was more dramatic and would give him leverage in other negotiations, Terry quoted Bolton as writing.

“Bolton confirms a deal was close in Hanoi but Kim had nothing to offer except Yongbyun,” she wrote, referring to North Korea’s main nuclear complex. “Trump pleaded with Kim to add something to his offer, but Kim refused. So Trump walked, knowing it would make him look good.”

I have been saying for years that North Korea is never going to give up their nuclear weapons. I can’t think from the Kim regime’s perspective one good reason to do so after what they have seen happen to both Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi.

Limiting the number of nuclear weapons and delivery systems seems like a more realistic goal which I wonder if anyone was advising President Trump on?

There is a new book out and of course to create traction in the media with it the author has to claim that President Trump is an idiot:

During that conversation, Wead wrote, Trump reiterated his belief that Obama would have gone to war with the North had he stayed in office.

“And I also think that thirty to one hundred million people could have been killed,” Wead quoted the president as saying.

South Korea has 51.2 million people and North Korea has a population of 25 million.

Trump then expressed disbelief at experts’ predictions that 100,000-200,000 people would die, a number he said was the equivalent of the population of a South Korean village.

“Well, as you know, Seoul, the capital city, is right by the so-called border,” he continued, according to Wead. “And that is a tough border by the way. An impenetrable border. And Seoul has a population of thirty million people. Kim has ten thousand guns, artillery, they call them cannons. He doesn’t even need a nuclear weapon to create one of the greatest calamities in history.”

The population of Seoul is just under 10 million.

Yonhap

When I read Trump’s comments I clearly understood that when he was talking about Seoul he was referencing the Seoul metropolitan area. The Seoul city center has 10 million, but the metro area has 25 million. Also when he is talking about upwards of 100 million casualties how do we know he wasn’t including if a nuclear weapon was dropped on Tokyo or other major cities? It is context like this that is important, but to get media attention he must be described as an idiot, so mission accomplished by this author.

The only real idiots are whoever told him a war on the Korean peninsula would only lead to 100,000 to 200,000 deaths. If they did not use nukes I could maybe understand that number, but I find it hard to believe that if North Korea went all in and used nuclear weapons, that only that many people would die.

A quote I did find interesting that may explain why President Trump is pushing so hard on the Moon administration on USFK cost sharing is the status of the THAAD battery in South Korea:

“Do you know how much we spend defending South Korea? Four and half billion dollars a year. Figure that one out?” he added.

Trump has reportedly demanded that South Korea raise its contribution to shared defense costs to US$5 billion next year, a five-fold increase from this year.

Trump also complained to Wead that the people who treated the U.S. the worst were its allies.

“And you’ve heard the story with South Korea with the missiles system, with the THAAD anti-missile system?” he was quoted as saying.

I read that to mean that he is not happy about how the Moon administration is allowing the blockade of the road to the THAAD battery to occur. ROK Heads may remember that the road is still blocked and all supplies and personnel to the battery have to be flown in by helicopter. The battery though there to protect South Koreans is frequently used by Moon’s leftist allies to promote wild conspiracy theories and anti-Americanism.

Trump we have seen has a long memory when it comes to things he does not like and maybe the THAAD issue is something he is still unhappy about and influencing the cost sharing talks?

Author Marin Limon has new book out titled, “The Line” that has been previewed in the Korea Times.  Part of the book has to do with black-marketing in South Korea:

But in the five tours totaling 10 years I served in Korea I never once saw the 8th Army brass falter or even slow down in their manic quest to stop the black market. In their opinion, the yobo menace had to be stopped. Even to the extent that once a GI and his family members were shipped back to the States, if the Korean wife returned to visit her mother and show off the grandkids, she wasn’t allowed even a few dollars ration to purchase anything in the PX. Not baby formula, not diapers, nothing. This despite being a bona fide military dependent with, supposedly, full Commissary and PX privileges.

Meanwhile, the college-aged children of high-ranking officers who flew to Korea to visit their parents during summer break received a full ration. As did Officers’ Wives’ Club members from Japan on a shopping junket. Even members of some foreign embassies received ration control plates, as did their dependents.

But a Korean GI wife? No ration for her unless 8th Army was forced into it.

During the late 1970s, I was assigned to the strangest duty of my military career. We were given an armband and told to stand at the end of the checkout line at the Yongsan Commissary and write down the names of any dependent wives or GIs purchasing excessive amounts of non-controlled items. Examples were bananas, Spam and frozen oxtail. I felt like a fool. So did most of the other guys on the detail. One of them wrote to his Congressman complaining that he hadn’t enlisted in the military in order to save the world from a Spam apocalypse.

Shortly thereafter, the detail was canceled, no explanation given.

Stop the yobos! That was the real impetus behind 8th Army’s ration control policy.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but the biggest black-marketeers in my opinion were not the Korean women buying too many oxtails, but the AAFES employees.

Just like President Trump is claimed in Woodward’s book to have been exploring the ordering of a preemptive strike on North Korea, what is the big deal if he was likewise exploring the option of removing dependents from South Korea?

Woodward writes that Trump even proposed sending a tweet declaring that he was ordering all U.S. military dependents out of South Korea, an act that would likely be read in North Korea as a signal that the United States was preparing for war.

The tweet never went out.

On Dec. 3, after another North Korean ICBM test, Sen. Lindsay Graham advocated removing U.S. troops’ families from South Korea in an interview. The book says that, the following day, McMaster was informed that Ri Su-yong, a vice chairman of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party Central Committee and director of the committee’s International Affairs Department, told intermediaries “that the North would take the evacuation of U.S. civilians as a sign of imminent attack.”

Hence, withdrawing the dependents of American troops should be “one of the last cards to play,” and the possible tweets were described by Woodward as having “scared the daylights out of the Pentagon leadership,” Defense Secretary James Mattis and Dunford.

Graham, in a change of heart, was said to have advised Trump in a phone call in January that a decision to withdraw U.S. troops’ families is “hard to go back” on, and that it would “rock the South Korean stock market and the Japanese economy.” When asked by Trump if he should delay such an evacuation, Graham, who has been a hard-liner on the North, was quoted as telling him, “I don’t think you should ever start this process unless you’re ready to go to war.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

If what is discussed in Woodward’s book is true, Trump like many people not familiar with the situation, may have thought removing dependents would be a good idea to make sure a preemptive strike option could be executed if needed.  Clearly his aides and Senator Graham advised him otherwise of the difficulties and ramifications of removing dependents from South Korea and the President decided otherwise.

Assuming this claim is true in Woodward’s latest rumormongering book, I don’t see what the problem is with the US President weighing the options available to address the North Korean nuclear issue.  Obviously after been given the information President Obama decided not to do it:

Former U.S. President Barack Obama mulled a preemptive attack on North Korea after its fifth nuclear test in 2016, according to a book released Tuesday.

Obama was deeply disturbed to learn that North Korea had conducted its biggest-yet nuclear detonation on Sept. 9, 2016, with the North claiming the new nuclear bomb could be mounted on a ballistic missile, journalist Bob Woodward wrote in “Fear: Trump in the White House.”

“Even with his intense desire to avoid a war, Obama decided the time had come to consider whether the North Korean nuclear threat could be eliminated in a surgical military strike,” the book claims.

“The North Korean threat had not been diminished, and in September 2016 Obama posed a sensitive question to his National Security Council: Was it possible to launch a preemptive military strike, supported by cyber attacks, on North Korea to take out their nuclear and missile programs?” it continues.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but the closest the US came to a preemptive strike was during the Clinton Administration when the nuclear issue first came up.  Strike planning was called off after Jimmy Carter’s unilateral intervention by traveling to Pyongyang. It does make me wonder how different things would be now if the Clinton administration did in fact launch this strike on North Korea’s nuclear program?

Here are some of the excerpts involving the Korean peninsula from Bob Woodward’s new book about the Trump administration:

A former senior adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump removed a document from the president’s desk to stop him from signing off on withdrawing the United States from a trade deal with South Korea, a news report citing an unpublished book said Tuesday.

Bob Woodward, a Washington Post journalist known for his investigative reporting on the Watergate scandal, wrote the anecdote in his new book, “Fear,” set for release next week, the paper said.

Woodward also wrote, based on in-depth interviews with administration officials whose identities were not revealed, that Trump’s handling of the North Korean nuclear threat caused anxiety among his subordinates.

“According to Woodward, Cohn ‘stole a letter off Trump’s desk’ that the president was intending to sign to formally withdraw the United States from a trade agreement with South Korea,” the Post wrote, referring to Trump’s former top economic adviser, Gary Cohn.

“Cohn later told an associate that he removed the letter to protect national security and that Trump did not notice that it was missing,” it said.

Trump is known to have considered terminating the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement last year before stopping short due to tensions over North Korea’s sixth nuclear test in September.

The two sides later renegotiated the deal but have yet to formally sign it.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

I find it hard to believe that something as significant as withdrawing from the US-ROK FTA would be something that President Trump would just forget about, he probably never intended to sign it in the first place.  This just seems like typical Trump approach of making a threatening demand to show his seriousness to later settle for a better deal.

At a National Security Council meeting in January, Trump downplayed the importance of the U.S. troop presence in South Korea and questioned why government resources were being spent in the region, the paper quoted the book as saying.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis responded, “We’re doing this in order to prevent World War III,” it said. “After Trump left the meeting, Woodward recounts, ‘Mattis was particularly exasperated and alarmed, telling close associates that the president acted like – and had the understanding of – ‘a fifth- or sixth-grader.’”

I find it believable that Secretary Mattis made the “prevent World War III” comment, but I find it hard to believe that Secretary Mattis would openly mock the President in front of his aides.

One month into the Trump administration, U.S. Joint Chief of Staff Chairman Joe Dunford was “rattled” when Trump asked him to prepare a plan for a pre-emptive military strike on North Korea.

I doubt someone of General Dunford’s stature and experience gets “rattled” by much of anything.  I would hope the Pentagon has a pre-emptive strike plan for North Korea on the shelf.  If the President wants to review it that seems prudent.

And last fall, Trump mocked North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at a United Nations speech by calling him “Little Rocket Man.” Aides worried that he may be provoking Kim, but the president told his then aide Rob Porter that it was a “contest of wills,” according to The Post’s account of the book.

“This is all about leader versus leader. Man versus man. Me versus Kim,” Trump was quoted as saying.

This last excerpt I can actually see the President saying.