Category: US-ROK Alliance

As predicted the new U.S. Defense Secretary under President Biden, Lloyd Austin wants to get a new US-ROK cost sharing deal done quickly:

U.S. President Joe Biden’s nominee for secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, said Wednesday he would bring about an early resolution to stalled military cost-sharing negotiations with South Korea.  
   
In a written statement to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Austin described the U.S. military alliance with Seoul as the “linchpin of peace and security in the region” and “among the most combined, interoperable, capable and dynamic” alliances in the world.  
   
If confirmed, the retired four-star general said he would focus on modernizing the alliance along with others throughout the Indo-Pacific region and “seek the early conclusion of cost-sharing negotiations with South Korea as part of those efforts.” 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Good luck trying to get President Moon to ever agree to this even though it makes sense from a national security perspective. The fact that Japan is part of it is just one reason why the Korean left can never agree to do this:

Harry Harris, in his farewell to South Korea as the U.S. ambassador, expressed the hope that the Asian country will join the U.S. and its other allies to stop China’s “malign influence” although not necessarily in the form of an expanded Quad.

Harris hinted that the door still remains open for the South to join the Quad, a security coalition of the U.S., Japan, Australia and India, which he described as a “natural grouping” based on shared views and therefore can be expanded.

“I believe the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is a malign influence in the region and the world,” he told The Korea Times in an exclusive interview, Jan. 20, at Habib House, the official residence of the U.S. ambassador. “And I believe that it’s important for democratic countries to call out China when China does things that are contrary to democratic, accepted rules to the world.”

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

This could be a sign that the cost sharing issue will likely get resolved when the new Biden administration takes over:

South Korea and the United States are negotiating a plan to share labor costs and avoid once more furloughing local employees of U.S. Forces Korea, a spokesman for the South Korean Ministry of National Defense said Monday.

“South Korea and U.S. defense authorities are currently holding discussions for employment stability of Koreans working for USFK,” said Boo Seung-chan at a Monday ministry briefing.

Seoul and Washington have been at odds over President Donald Trump’s demand that South Korea substantially increase the amount it pays to host a U.S. military presence, a contract called the Special Measures Agreement. The previous agreement expired in December 2018.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

The problem Moon had not meeting the turn over timeline was that his own political outreach to North Korea that led to the suspension of joint exercises delayed meeting the conditions needed for this hand over:

South Korea is unlikely to reclaim its wartime operational command from the US by May 2022 as South Korean President Moon Jae-in has pledged, experts told The Korea Herald. 

Experts said little time is left in Moon’s tenure and the transfer will be delayed even after Seoul greets a new US military chief, as announced Friday. The new chief will replace Gen. Robert Abrams, commander of the United States Forces Korea who said it would be “premature” to set a date for the handover. 

The two allies skipped joint drills this year over coronavirus concerns, which would have tested Seoul’s readiness. 

“The new US commander will see the issue in a similar way. And the Biden administration will likewise highlight conditions to be met. There is little room for political maneuvering to expect otherwise,” said Choi Kang, vice president of the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

It looks like in the near future Korea could be seeing some more rotational forces if the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has his way:

The military needs to move away from units being permanently based overseas and focus more on rotational deployments, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Thursday.

“I am not a fan of large, permanent military bases from the U.S. overseas in other people’s countries. I think that is something that needs a hard, hard look,” Army Gen. Mark Milley said during a defense forum in Washington, D.C., hosted by the U.S. Naval Institute. (………….)

Milley acknowledged there’s “no enthusiasm” for suggesting rotational forces over permanent overseas assignments, as many service members enjoy the overseas assignments with their families. Some countries also like having the permanent presence, he said, but those accompanying assignments bring risk. The amount of families living in South Korea with the threat of North Korea nearby has been a security challenge for decades, Milley said.

“If something were to happen, then we would have a significant amount of noncombatant, U.S. military dependents in harm’s way. I have a problem with that. I don’t have a problem with us, those of us in uniform, be in harm’s way. This is what we get paid for, this is what our job is,” said Milley.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but General Milley is right about the logistical issue of trying to evacuate families from Korea if a contingency was to occur. However, this has been a problem for decades and military leadership has decided to increase the amount of families in South Korea. We have all heard the tagline that USFK is the “Assignment of Choice” to encourage service members and their families to volunteer to come to Korea. What is the point of pulling out families if a few years down the road new military leadership decides to change things again?

I think the Korean government is not going to like this idea either. Having U.S. military families on the peninsula constrains what U.S. government leaders can do in response to North Korea provocations. Despite all of North Korea’s provocations that have killed many Korean and American military and civilian personnel over the decades, there has never been a punitive strike launched against the Kim regime. The location of Seoul near the DMZ is part of the constraint on decision making, but undoubtedly trying to evacuate USFK family members is another constraint as well.

Maybe allowing more rotational forces is a bargaining chip the Moon administration can use to get the Biden administration to agree to a peace treaty to advances it confederation policy?

No soon after I post an article speculating that South Korea is pursuing a policy of neutrality here comes President Moon’s trial balloon expert advocating for this exact policy:

South Korea should work together with Australia, Canada and Japan to form regional economic or security frameworks so as to create a new order free from the burden of choosing sides between the United States and China, an adviser to President Moon Jae-in said Friday.

Moon Chung-in, special foreign policy and security adviser, made the remarks during a virtual seminar, stressing that it is very unlikely the tensions between Washington and Beijing will get any better under the next U.S. administration of Joe Biden. 

“The Biden administration will be using a softer tone, but the policy will be as tough as Trump’s. There will be a tougher American encirclement of China, although he might be more selective in terms of technology and economy,” he said in the seminar hosted by the Korean Association for Public Diplomacy. 

“That will put us in an extremely difficult position. It will restore the old ‘bloc diplomacy’ … in the form of a new Cold War,” he said. 

Moon added that a worsening of U.S.-China tensions will make it difficult to resolve the North Korea issue peacefully.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but the Cold War era strategy worked and served South Korea’s national interest very well.

Over at the Lowy Institute which is an Australian think tank, they have article published speculating that South Korea could in the near future become a neutral nation:

Around five years ago, I submitted an article to a leading strategic studies journal detailing how options previously considered extreme – such as abandoning the US alliance, acceding to China’s dominance, declaring a position of neutrality and/or securing a nuclear weapons capacity – were entering strategic debate in South Korea. Their assessment was that such views were unrealistic and fanciful. One Trump administration later, and these views have entered mainstream political debate in South Korea. It’s time to realise that strategic change on the Korean peninsula will not come from North Korea – strategic change will come from South Korea.

Lowy Institute

You can read the rest at the link, but the author Jeffrey Robinson seems to be putting blame on the Trump administration for South Korea pursuing these different options. I would argue Trump has little to do with South Korea’s current political trajectory. I believe that current President Moon Jae-in is far more the reason for South Korea’s current political trajectory than Trump.

President Moon has long had a policy of appeasement with North Korea. His policy of appeasement stretches back to when he was former President Roh Moo-hyun’s Chief of Staff. Back in those days the ROK government was funding the North Korea regime more than they were contributing to the US-ROK alliance. The Kim regime of course used all that funding to further modernize their military, expand their nuclear weapons program, and build an ICBM capability instead of investing in the welfare of their people.

It has been effectively argued that the Moon administration’s ultimate goal if they are able to get sanctions eased is to pursue a confederacy with North Korea. To get to a confederacy a Korean War peace treaty is needed which would then pave the way for the end of the US-ROK alliance. That is why the South Korean left and the Kim regime has been relentlessly pushing for a Korean War peace treaty; if there is peace why is USFK needed? With sanctions eased and no USFK there is little reason to think the Korean left cannot push forward with their confederacy agenda.

A confederacy would leave the ROK at the mercy of the Kim regime’s nuclear weapons and China’s good will to keep North Korea in check. To keep North Korea in check the ROK would likely need to become a neutral nation in the strategic power competition in the region between China and the U.S. This would effectively Findlandize the ROK under China’s orbit. The anti-U.S. Korean left seems to prefer this inevitably instead of the current status quo that has brought unprecedented wealth and prosperity to South Korea.

The only thing that has stopped the confederacy agenda has been the Trump administration’s hardline stance on sanctions and denuclearization before any peace treaty. This clearly shows that Trump is not the cause, but instead the impediment to the Moon administration moving forward with their post-US-ROK alliance confederacy agenda.

This is really something more Korean troops should take part in because the NTC is some of the best training I have ever done in the Army:

Dozens of South Korean troops visited a U.S. military training center in California and staged combined training exercises with American service members, officials said Wednesday.

Around 50 Army members, including those from a reconnaissance unit, carried out various joint maneuvers with the U.S. troops at the U.S. Fort Irwin National Training Center (NTC) for about a month from mid-October, according to the officials.

They returned home Tuesday and have been quarantined for the new coronavirus, they added.

Initially, the Army was scheduled to send troops to the training center earlier this year, but the plan was postponed due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. The NTC had been closed for months to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.