Category: US-ROK Alliance

I think President Trump has a far different definition of what “reasonable” means than President Moon:

NEW YORK, Sept. 23 (Yonhap) — South Korean President Moon Jae-in told U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday that his government is open to sharing the cost of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) on a “reasonable and fair” level, a Cheong Wa Dae official said after their summit here.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but it will be interesting to see if President Moon tries to raise anti-US sentiment like he has done with Japan if he can’t get Trump to back down on significantly increasing the ROK’s cost sharing amount each year.

The Moon administration is sending their Foreign Minister to try and lobby the USFK commander on the USFK cost sharing issue:

Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha will meet with United States Forces Korea (USFK) commander Robert Abrams, Friday, at the new USFK headquarters in Camp Humphreys, to discuss pending security affairs here.

Kang’s visit to Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, located about 70 kilometers south of Seoul, is the first since 2017. The visit to the U.S. military base comes at a crucial time when the allies are on the verge of starting their defense cost-sharing negotiations, known as the Special Measures Agreement (SMA).

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

I don’t think a technocrat is going to change President Trump’s mind that the ROK needs to pay much more for the upkeep of the US-ROK alliance, but I guess we will see what happens:

The government is considering naming a non-diplomat official, such as a financial technocrat, to head negotiations with the U.S. on sharing the cost for the upkeep of American troops, sources said Friday.

That would mark a departure from the tradition that officials from either the foreign or defense ministries have led the Special Measures Agreement (SMA) aimed at determining how much South Korea should shoulder the cost of U.S. troop presence in the country.

The two sides expected to launch the negotiations around mid-September amid widespread indications that the United States could ask for a massive raise in Seoul’s share of the cost of the stationing of the 28,500-strong U.S. Forces Korea (USFK).

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The long debated issue of where to officially put the Combined Forces Command has apparently been settled:

Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command (CFC) will be relocated from the Yongsan Garrison in Seoul to Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek by 2021, defense officials announced Sunday.

The CFC, Korea’s Ministry of National Defense and Joint Chiefs of Staff made the announcement jointly on Sunday, adding that a timeline will be finalized in the U.S.-Korea Security Consultative Meeting coming at the end of October or early November.

The move had been forewarned by Washington and Seoul in June, but Sunday was the first time an exact time for the move was announced. 

The move of the CFC will be in time for the expected transfer of wartime operational control (Opcon) over Korea’s military forces from the United States to Korea by 2022.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but the ROK was trying to keep the CFC in Seoul and force the Americans to commute every week for meetings. USFK wanted the CFC based out of Camp Humphreys which is what they ended up getting.

According to the article the hand over of operational control is still planned for 2022. 2022 just happens to be of the ROK presidential election so you know that who ever President Moon selects to run for President will take credit for the hand over.

Here is the latest on the return of closed out U.S. military bases in South Korea:

Cheong Wa Dae said Friday it will redouble efforts for the early return of more than two dozen U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) bases.

It was briefing media on the results of a weekly meeting of the National Security Council’s (NSC) standing committee.

The USFK has been moving its bases nationwide mainly to a refurbished garrison in Pyeongtaek, some 70 kilometers south of Seoul. It’s named Camp Humphreys.

The process of South Korea regaining the sites of the affected bases has been going slowly, however, partly due to handling of polluted soil.

In the session, presided over by Chung Eui-yong, director of Cheong Wa Dae’s national security office, the NSC panel members agreed to “push actively for an early return” of the sites of 26 USFK bases, which will be vacant or have already been, according to Cheong Wa Dae.

“In particular, (they) agreed to begin the return process on the Yongsan base (in central Seoul) within this year,” it said.

Top security officials, including the defense minister, especially decided to seek the return of four bases at the earliest possible date, it added.

They are Camp Long and Camp Eagle in Wonju, Gangwon Province, as well as Camp Market in Incheon and Camp Hovey in Dongducheon, Gyeonggi Province.

Those who reside in nearby areas have suffered economic troubles because of a long delay in the return of the bases, the NSC officials noted.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I guess the Moon administration does not like hearing the truth:

South Korean First Vice Foreign Minister Cho Sei-young on Wednesday asked the United States to refrain from public messaging against Seoul’s recent decision to terminate a military information-sharing pact with Japan, a source here said.

Cho met with U.S. Ambassador Harry Harris to make the request as Washington has repeatedly expressed disappointment and concerns in a rare public rebuke of Seoul’s decision to end the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA).

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but remember that Ambassador Harris was the former INDOPACOM commander and the GSOMIA was a major accomplishment during that timeframe that INDOPACOM is a facilitator of.

It seems that President Trump does not have a high opinion of the recently concluded joint US-ROK military exercise:

U.S. President Donald Trump has called the recently concluded South Korea-U.S. combined military exercise “unnecessary” and a “total waste of money” despite heightened tensions caused by Pyongyang’s recent launches of short-range projectiles.

During the Group of Seven summit in France on Sunday, Trump also told reporters that Pyongyang’s projectile launches do not represent a breach of his agreement with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un that involves nuclear and longer-range ballistic missile tests.

Pyongyang tested what it claims to be a “new” super-large multiple rocket launch system Saturday — the first such projectile launch since the allied exercise ended Tuesday, and the seventh since July 25 when the North started firing missiles and projectiles in protest in the runup to the exercise.

“I’m not happy about it. But again, he’s not in violation of an agreement,” Trump said before his bilateral talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on the sidelines of the G-7 summit in Biarritz, according to a transcript released by the White House. (………..)

“I said that to all of my people. I said, ‘I don’t want to interfere because I think if you want to do them, you can do them, if you think it’s necessary. But I think it’s a total waste of money,'” he said.

Trump went on to say, “I think it was unnecessary to do, frankly.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Here is some more Korean media criticism about the US-ROK cost sharing talks from Oh Young-jin in the Korea Times:

U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) is under attack not by enemy but by its own commander-in-chief, President Donald Trump.

Trump is prioritizing the size of the bill host Korea pays toward upkeep and is indulging himself in an unwarranted bromance with the head of the enemy. 

The risk is bringing confusion to the mission and raison d’etre of the peacekeepers and freedom fighters who have stood ready for decades to throw down their lives to help protect Koreans from North Korean invasions and assert a U.S.-led balance of power in the region where interests of big powers often clash. So a blow to the USFK credibility is feared. 

Already, Trump’s first defense secretary, James Mattis, the soldier of the soldiers, called it quits over Trump’s acts of belittling the allies, calling them freeloaders being piggybacked by the U.S., and his boss’s readiness to sleep with enemies like the North’s young dictator Kim Jong-un and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Korea Times

Here is the most humorous line from the article:

One commentator wondered aloud whether if Korea pays what the U.S. reportedly demands, it would make GIs mercenaries that work for money with no regard to common cause and purpose. 

First of all hardly any soldier in USFK even knows or cares about the on going US-ROK cost sharing talks. Secondly if and when a new deal is struck it is not like USFK soldiers are getting a cut from whatever the Korean side pays.

Regardless of how much Korea pays it makes absolutely no difference to the average USFK soldier and thus it is total hyperbole to claim that USFK soldiers would begin feeling like mercenaries because the ROK pays more for the upkeep of the alliance.

It is strange times in Korea when the conservative politicians are complaining about President Trump and the Korean left don’t like him either, but they really don’t know why:

Korean conservatives are generally pro-U.S. and advocates of a strong Seoul-Washington alliance. 

Yet their alliance appears to be cracking following U.S. President Donald Trump’s remarks on issues crucial for South Korea. The real estate developer-turned-politician has expressed his interest in trading the blood-forged alliance for an increase in national revenue and appears to favor North Korea over the South. 

Last Friday he even made fun of South Korea ― along with Japan and the European Union ― mimicking the Korean accent before his deep-pocketed supporters. 

Their sense of humiliation has seen even pro-U.S. conservative politicians speak out to slam Trump. Some lashed out at the president, calling him “empty-headed” or “too inept to figure out what’s right and wrong.”

“With the ‘money is everything’ mind of a merchant, Trump seems to be confused about what is his ally and foe,” Rep. Cho Kyung-tae of the main opposition Liberty Party of Korea (LPK) said on a radio show Tuesday. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

This only makes sense that the U.S. should start deploying ballistic missiles when the North Koreans, Russians, and Chinese are doing the same thing:

With the new Pentagon chief’s signal that Washington plans to consult with its allies on the placement of intermediate-range missiles in Asia, Seoul is again put in a difficult position, concerned that its relations with Beijing and Pyongyang could be complicated if South Korea is chosen as the deployment site.  

However, the Korean Ministry of National Defense said on Monday that it has not yet held any official discussions with the United States on the placement of intermediate-range missiles in Korea, nor is it considering such deployment at the moment.  

Ahead of a visit to Seoul this week, U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper was asked by reporters Saturday if the Pentagon was considering deploying ground-based intermediate-range missiles in Asia, to which he responded, “Yes. I would like to. But let’s be clear, I’m talking about conventional weapons.”  

Washington was previously unable to pursue ground-based missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers because of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, an arms control pact with Russia dating back to 1987, which the United States withdrew from last Friday.  

“Right now, we don’t have plans to build nuclear-tipped INF-range weapons,” said Esper. As to the timeline, he said, “I would prefer months … But these things tend to take longer than you expect.”  

The move is expected to prompt protests by Russia, China and North Korea, and analysts fear the start of a new arms race. Experts have pointed out that the first U.S. intermediate missile deployments are likely to counter China, rather than Russia.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but I would be surprised if South Korea is chosen as a location unless the peace talks with North Korea collapse and lead to another provocation cycle. Deploying ballistic missiles to South Korea would be a great deterrent option to execute in response to a future provocation cycle.