Category: US-ROK Alliance

I guess we will see if the U.S. Defense Secretary can help mend defense relations between Japan and the ROK next week:

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper will travel to South Korea next week for annual defense ministers’ talks ahead of the expiry of a key military intelligence-sharing pact between Seoul and Tokyo, the Pentagon said Thursday.

Esper will depart Wednesday to travel to Seoul, Bangkok, Manila and Hanoi, Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said during a press briefing. He did not provide the exact dates, but it appears likely the secretary will travel in that order.

Esper’s trip to Seoul comes ahead of the Nov. 23 expiration of the General Security of Military Information Agreement between South Korea and Japan.

Washington has urged Seoul to reconsider its decision to end the pact in consideration of the three countries’ mutual security interests.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

At some point I would not be surprised if the Moon administration plays the anti-US card at some point to get the American negotiators to back down on increased cost sharing demands. In the past the usual suspects would already be out there protesting like crazy about something like this, but clearly the Moon administration has them in check for now:

Alarm has started to spread in Seoul over reported demands by the United States that Korea contribute to the upkeep of U.S. military forces beyond the Korean Peninsula. 

According to Rep. Yoon Sang-hyun, chairman of the National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee on Thursday, Washington’s chief negotiator in negotiations with Seoul over the Special Measures Agreement (SMA), James DeHart, told Korean lawmakers and government officials in a meeting that Korea should pay approximately $4.7 billion in alliance upkeep costs – around five times the amount it currently pays to keep U.S. forces stationed on its soil. 

Yoon told a local broadcaster that this amount includes labor and logistics costs for the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) – which Seoul is already paying – but also maintenance and deployment costs for U.S. strategic assets on Korean soil and at U.S. military bases abroad, possibly in Guam, Hawaii and around the Indian Ocean. 

Other expenses demanded from Korea include the costs of conducting combined military exercises and upkeep for civilian attaches to the USFK.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Here is the latest on the pending termination of the GSOMIA:

The United States appears to be heaping pressure on South Korea to retract its decision to end a military intelligence-sharing pact with Tokyo amid North Korea’s continued saber-rattling and specter of tighter security cooperation between China and Russia.

U.S. diplomats have openly voiced concerns over the looming termination of the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), seen as a symbolic platform for Washington to expand its trilateral defense collaboration with the Asian allies.

In August, Seoul announced its decision to end GSOMIA in response to Tokyo’s new export curbs seen as political retaliation for last year’s Korean Supreme Court rulings against Japanese firms over wartime forced labor. It will expire on Nov. 23 unless Seoul reverses the decision.

In a recent interview with Japan’s Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Marc Knapper, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for Korea and Japan, urged Seoul and Tokyo to maintain GSOMIA despite their chilled ties.

“Nobody is happy with the situation. Actually not nobody — there are people happy with the situation, but they happen to be in Beijing, Moscow and Pyongyang,” Knapper said in the interview.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It will be interesting to see how this is handled:

The United States recently pressed South Korea to pay at least $100 million, or 117 billion won, for the temporary dispatch of U.S. strategic assets around the Korean Peninsula, the JoongAng Ilbo exclusively reported Wednesday.

Citing multiple sources with knowledge of the talks, the paper said U.S. officials raised the issue late last month and again last week when both countries met for their first and second rounds of discussions on renewing the bilateral Special Measures Agreement (SMA), a cost-sharing deal that defines how much each country pays for the stationing of 28,500 U.S. troops in South Korea.

Both countries launched discussions late last month to renew the deal, which is set to expire at the end of this year. The first round of talks was held on Sept. 24 and 25, and the second round was held on Oct. 23 and 24.

In both meetings, multiple sources who spoke with the JoongAng Ilbo said the United States asked South Korea to pay for the deployment of their strategic assets flying near the Korean Peninsula, saying their flights were defending the South.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

We all know that President Trump wants South Korea to pay more for the US-ROK alliance upkeep. This is nothing new, however this guy needs to sell a book which of course means coming up with a quote that make Trump look crazy. When are people going to learn not to take President Trump’s outbursts literally as he wanting $60 billion a year from South Korea. From the quote, I read it as he wants South Korea to pay much more for US-ROK alliance upkeep fees and just threw out a big number to make his point:

 U.S. President Donald Trump called South Korea a “major abuser” and claimed the U.S. ally should pay US$60 billion a year for the stationing of American troops in the country, according to a memoir published Tuesday.

Guy Snodgrass, former chief speechwriter and communications director to former U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis, made the revelation in his new book, “Holding the Line: Inside Trump’s Pentagon with Secretary Mattis,” as he recounted two meetings between Trump and his national security team at the Pentagon in July 2017 and January 2018.

According to Snodgrass, Trump repeatedly questioned the value of stationing U.S. troops overseas and asked top officials, including then-Defense Secretary Mattis and then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, whether the troops could be withdrawn from countries such as South Korea, Japan and Germany.

“It’s a losing deal!” Trump was quoted as saying in January 2018. “If (South Korea) paid us $60 billion a year to keep our troops overseas, then it’s an okay deal.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This flight may have more to do with recent Russian flights over the East Sea than just North Korea:

Two U.S. B-52 strategic bombers flew over the East Sea last week, an aviation tracker said, in a mission possibly designed to send a warning in response to North Korea’s recent series of missile launches. 

The bombers, which took off from Guam’s Anderson Air Base, “conducted a mission” in the East Sea and “possibly the South China Sea” on Friday, Aircraft Spots said on a Twitter post. Three KC-135R aerial tankers provided support for their flight. 

The B-52 is considered a representative strategic asset of the United States, along with intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and ballistic missile submarines. 

The plane had not appeared often near the Korean Peninsula since North Korea began its full-fledged diplomatic push with South Korea and the U.S. early last year.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This isn’t the first time that the safety of the U.S. ambassador has been put at risk with protesters scaling the walls to get inside:

The government requested Friday that law enforcement authorities beef up security around the US Embassy and the residence of the top American diplomat in Seoul after nearly 20 university students trespassed in his residence.

Earlier in the day, 17 students and members of a progressive civic group broke into the residence of US Ambassador Harry Harris in central Seoul by climbing over its wall using a ladder. 

They staged a surprise protest criticizing Washington’s demand for a hefty rise in Seoul’s share of the cost for the upkeep of the 28,500-strong US Forces Korea. Police took the 17 and two others attempting to join them into custody for investigation.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link, but the government says they will deal sternly with for the break in, which I doubt.