Category: US-ROK Alliance

Here is something else THAAD related that will rile up leftists in South Korea:

Korean officials Friday denied that they have discussed with Washington construction fees for a base in Korea housing the U.S.-led Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) antimissile system, contradicting a 2021 U.S. Army budget proposal suggesting that the multi-million dollar budget will be covered by Korea.

The denials came in response to local media reports earlier yesterday saying that the U.S. Department of Army’s proposed budget for the 2021 fiscal year showed $49 million would be used for construction on the Thaad site in Seongju County, North Gyeongsang.

In the proposed budget, the U.S. Army described the article as “Korea funded construction,” implying that Seoul would pay. Of the total amount, $37 million was set aside for site security, lighting and weapons storage, while about $7 million was earmarked for electricity, sewers and road works.  

The budget also stated that Washington would allocate $1 billion for enhancing Thaad systems around the world, stoking fears here that the United States might pressure Seoul to partially cover some of those fees as well.

The U.S. budget proposal raised red flags in Korea because the allies agreed in 2017 – when parts for the antimissile system arrived in Seongju amid a major backlash from local residents – that Seoul would provide the land for housing Thaad, while Washington covered other costs of deployment.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but why don’t the leftists get this worked up about the Patriot missile batteries spread out all around South Korea? I already explained the answer to that one at this link.

It figures that Korean leftists would be upset the United States military is working on a way to better defend their country:

Korea is back in the hot seat as the U.S. military has announced plans to improve its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) batteries including the one here. 

As the upgrade is focused on extending the range of its defense area, the plan is raising speculations that the launchers may be transferred to Seoul or its surrounding areas, or that additional launchers may be deployed, which may reignite disputes with China over the anti-missile system. A report has also sparked concerns that the U.S. may push Korea to fund the construction of the THAAD base, which could run counter to the allies’ agreement on the issue.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but what is going on here is that the THAAD system’s launchers are hardwired into the rest of the system. What the update will provide is the ability to remote launchers further out away from the rest of the battery wirelessly. What this does is extend the area a THAAD battery can defend.

This is technology that the Patriot missile defense system already has and is only natural that THAAD would eventually develop this technology as well. There are Patriot missile batteries spread out all over South Korea that receive technology updates, but only the THAAD system continues to be continuously protested by the Korean left. Part of this is because former President Park Geun-hye approved the deployment of the battery; to a Korean leftist that means it must be a bad decision.

The second part of this is the China who does not like the deployment of the system. They claim it spies on them which is nonsense, they just use the issue to create a wedge between the U.S. and the ROK. The Moon administration may be calculating that if their supporters keep up their THAAD protests, President Trump will redeploy the system which solves their China problem and is another erasing of a major accomplishment during the former Park administration.

This will cause South Korea to have less ballistic missile defense protection, but to the Korean left they have never looked at North Korea as a threat anyway.

Whatever the Blue House is trying to do with the GSOMIA that have not briefed Ambassador Harris on it apparently:

U.S. Ambassador to Korea Harry Harris said he was unaware of renewed talk in the Korean government about the possibility of scrapping a bilateral military intelligence-sharing pact with Japan known as Gsomia, but he stressed that the American position remains that the agreement is “important.” 

Sitting down with JoongAng Ilbo reporters and a video crew after a tour of his residence, Habib House, Ambassador Harris said, “[Gsomia] is a bilateral agreement between Korea and Japan, and the challenges they have – they have to work out.”

In an exclusive report on Monday, the JoongAng Ilbo reported that a hard-line stance in favor of terminating Gsomia was gaining momentum in the Blue House, citing a government source familiar with Korea-Japan ties. 

Terminating Gsomia, short for General Security of Military Information Agreement, continues to be Seoul’s most powerful trump card in negotiations with Tokyo as the two neighboring countries remain stuck in a diplomatic and trade spat over Japan’s use of Korean forced labor during World War II. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

I don’t think a cost sharing agreement getting done until after the parliamentary elections in April. The ROK will end up paying more and they would likely rather pay more after the election. It would not look good going into an election and having the appearance of backing down to the U.S. on the cost sharing issue. In the meantime the Korean national employees on U.S. bases will be out of work beginning April 1st:

Yi Myong Hwa, who has worked for the U.S. military for nearly half her life, has been getting headaches and wakes up these days to a feeling of dread.

Yi is one of some 9,000 South Korean employees who received notice late last month that they may be forced to take unpaid leave beginning on April 1 if the United States and South Korea fail to agree on a new defense cost-sharing agreement.

“The furlough notice hit us like a bolt of lightning,” the 46-year-old fire department dispatcher told Stars and Stripes in a recent interview at her office at Camp Casey, the closest U.S. base to the border with North Korea.

“Korean employees have been working for U.S. troops and the security of the United States and South Korea,” she said. “It’s outrageous that we’re being used as a bargaining chip.”

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Here is the latest on the status of US-ROK cost sharing talks:

 Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said Thursday that South Korea and the United States still have “big” gaps in their negotiations over Seoul’s share of the cost for stationing American troops here despite a broadening of “mutual understanding.”

Her remarks came as the two countries are preparing for the seventh round of negotiations expected to take place in Seoul this month to determine Korea’s payments for the upkeep of the 28,500-strong U.S. Forces Korea under the cost-sharing deal, called the Special Measures Agreement (SMA). 

“Though gaps are still big, the two countries have deepened mutual understanding much more, and we are in a situation where we have to make an agreement based on that understanding,” Kang said in a press briefing.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but I don’t see this getting done before the April parliamentary elections in Korea. In whatever deal that is reached it is pretty clear that Korea is going to end up paying more and that won’t look good politically for the Moon administration. It makes sense for them to wait until after the April elections to make a deal.

It will be interesting to see if the Moon administration will possibly delay the turn over of OPCON responsibilities due to the scale down of joint military exercises:

Seoul is in a dilemma over annual military exercises with Washington, trying to balance diplomacy with Pyongyang while staying on track for the transfer of wartime operational control (Opcon).  

President Moon Jae-in pledged since he took office in 2017 that the transfer of Opcon from Washington to Seoul should take place within his five-year term, and to carry this out, stable and regular joint military drills need to be conducted.  

However, those combined military exercises don’t help denuclearization negotiations with Pyongyang. Major Seoul-Washington exercises have been postponed, suspended or scaled down for the sake of diplomacy with the North since early 2018.  

Seoul’s Ministry of National Defense gave a briefing to Moon on Tuesday at the Gyeryongdae military complex in South Chungcheong on its comprehensive policy plan for this year. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but the transfer of OPCON is such a political goal for the Moon administration, I think it will be hard for them to delay it.

This is a great way for the Moon administration to make it appear they are contributing to the international coalition defending the Strait of Hormuz when in reality they just added a liaison officer:

South Korea’s decision to send troops to the tense Strait of Hormuz for “independent” naval operations drove home its desire to cement alliance cooperation with the United States and avoid straining ties with its trade partner, Iran, analysts said Tuesday.

Capping monthslong deliberations that pitted security cooperation with Washington against economic relations with Tehran, Seoul announced it would temporarily expand areas of operations for its anti-piracy Cheonghae unit to cover the passageway off Iran.

The naval unit, now stationed in the Gulf of Aden, will operate independently of the International Maritime Security Construct (IMSC), a U.S.-led military coalition to safeguard freedom of navigation in the waterway, though it would cooperate with the coalition if need be. Two South Korean liaison officers will be dispatched to the IMSC.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but basically the ROK ship on anti-piracy duty in the Gulf of Aden can be asked by the US coalition for help through a ROK liaison officer that is deployed to assist them.

This is not a surprise considering the North Koreans have been so far this year behaving:

South Korea and the United States will modify their springtime combined exercises in order to support diplomatic efforts to denuclearize North Korea, the defense ministry said Tuesday.

Since the nuclear negotiating process began in 2018, the South and the U.S. have either scaled back or made other modifications to joint military drills in an effort to avoid provoking Pyongyang that has long denounced such maneuvers as a rehearsal for invasion.

“We’ve been smoothly preparing for planned combined drills,” a senior ministry official said. “If diplomatic efforts are under way, we will conduct (the drills) within the bounds to be agreed upon between the South and the U.S.”

The stance was part of the ministry’s comprehensive policy plan for the new year, which Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo reported to President Moon Jae-in at the Gyeryongdae military headquarters in the South Chungcheong Province in the day.

In line with the policy, the two countries are expected to replace their usual large-scale springtime exercise, Key Resolve and Foal Eagle maneuvers, with a computer-simulated command post exercise (CPX), called Dong Maeng, just as they did last year.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but Dong Maeng means “alliance” in English and it is what they replaced the UFL exercise with last summer. It looks like Key Resolve is going to use the same name. Even with the downsized exercise and name change the North Koreans still complained about it last year.

Ambassador Harris has already spoke out against President Moon’s idea to restart tourism into North Korea and the State Department has now formally put the Moon administration on notice:

The U.S. State Department said Washington expects every member of the United Nations to abide by North Korean sanctions, apparently objecting to remarks by South Korean President Moon Jae-in that he could use inter-Korean projects to “broaden international support” for a partial sanctions exemption for Pyongyang.

In an interview with the JoongAng Ilbo last Friday in Washington, U.S. State Department Spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said it was crucial for all UN members to abide by UN sanctions when asked about Moon’s recent remarks to possibly allow individual tourism to the North.

When the reporter pointed out that individual tours to the North are not subject to current sanctions, Ortagus, without clearly mentioning anything about Moon’s idea, stressed that the Donald Trump administration was hopeful Trump’s special relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un would lead to a “diplomatic breakthrough.”

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but this is all part of the Moon administration’s attempt to generate anti-U.S. sentiment prior to April’s legislative elections. Remember the ruling party cannot run on their record because of how poorly the economy and North Korean relations have been. Instead expect the Moon administration to create divisive issues with the U.S. and Japan to drive nationalistic voting in April. They likely hope this this combined with the new election law will be enough to maintain control of the legislature.

This is really nothing new on the U.S. President’s part; he has been very consistent on South Korea paying more for the upkeep of the US-ROK alliance. The only question at this point is how much is the increase going to be?:

U.S. President Donald Trump has publicly increased pressure on South Korea to pay more for the upkeep of 28,500 United States Forces Korea (USFK), ahead of the next round of negotiations for the ongoing defense cost-sharing talks scheduled to be held in Washington, D.C., Tuesday and Wednesday. 

The 11th Special Measures Agreement (SMA) ― as the talks are called ― between Washington and Seoul began in September last year for this year’s defense cost-sharing, but its year-end deadline has passed with the countries failing to narrow their differences. 

“These rich countries have to pay for it. South Korea gave us $500 million,” Trump said during an interview with Fox News, Friday (local time). “They’re a wealthy country. They build all your television sets, they took that away from us, they build ships, they build a lot of things. I said we’re protecting and you’ve got to pay. They paid us $500 million; they’re going to pay us a lot more.”

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.