Category: US-ROK Alliance

The next round of cost sharing negotiations should be interesting:

U.S. President Donald Trump, after a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, demanded Saturday a drastic increase in Korea’s contribution to defense sharing costs next year.

“We are defending wealthy countries. They can well afford to pay us,” Trump said Saturday in a campaign rally at the Resch Center Complex in Green Bay, Wisconsin. “There’s one country, I don’t want to say it, I don’t want to embarrass anybody […] I called the country. I called and said, listen, no good.”

Given the context and Trump’s earlier statements, it was obvious he was referring to South Korea. 

“We are losing $4.5 billion. We can’t do this anymore,” Trump said. “He got very upset, angry […] He said, well, we will give you 500 million more, because the budget, you see, had already been set. I said, I want more. We argued. They paid us more than $500 million more for one phone call. I’m not bragging.”

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Here is what the ROK Defense Minister had to say about any possible reductions in the size of USFK:

South Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo has ensured there will be no reduction of U.S. troops in South Korea. 

Meeting with reporters during his visit to Joint Base Meyer in Arlington, Virginia on Tuesday, the minister addressed speculations of a possible downsizing of U.S. Forces Korea triggered by ongoing upgrades of South Korea’s military weapons system. 

He said the augmentation of the forces is to further enhance the South Korean military’s capacity.  

KBS World Radio

You can read more at the link, but as I have always said, any reduction of USFK would likely happen after a peace treaty is signed. The left wing activist groups in South Korea will use a peace treaty as an excuse to protest the continued presence of USFK. These protests would be intended to make life difficult for US troops just like it currently is for the troops stationed at the THAAD site in South Korea.

It looks like the upkeep of CP Tango will now become a joint responsibility:

South Korea and the United States have tentatively agreed to push for the joint use of a key U.S.-controlled wartime command bunker complex on the peninsula in a move likely to incur a new financial burden on Seoul, informed sources here said Wednesday.

The allies have been discussing how to manage CP Tango, or Command Post Theater Air Naval Ground Operations, in Seongnam, just south of Seoul, during their talks on the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) governing the legal status of some 28,500 American troops here. 
Washington initially hoped to hand over to Seoul control of the decades-old bunker ahead of the envisioned transfer of wartime operational control (OPCON) after which South Korea will lead wartime operations with the U.S. playing a supporting role.

Seoul had balked at the idea of solely managing the bunker due largely to hefty costs for repairing and upgrading its facilities and equipment. Currently, it does not pay for the command post management, but a deal to share the bunker would mean Seoul footing part of the bill.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but according to the article, CP Tango was established in 1974 and was recently put on a list of budget cuts to fund President Trump’s US-Mexico wall. This joint funding of CP Tango appears to be some kind of attempt to save the bunker. I guess we will see what happens.

In the Japan Times they have an op-ed published in response to the White House’s Cost Plus 50 strategy for paying for the stationing of US troops.

The “Cost Plus 50” formula means the White House is aiming for allies to pay 100 percent of U.S. stationing costs plus a premium of 50 percent on top of that. While there are arguments to be made about whether such a goal is even achievable (spoiler alert: it is not), it is important to highlight some of the bad assumptions that underwrite the belief that “allies don’t pay enough.” (……..)

Bad assumption 4: It is easy to tally up the cost of stationing forces overseas.
Reality: For the administration to demand Cost Plus 50, it must first assess how much it actually costs to station forces overseas. Take it from a former alliance manager who has run the “cost drill,” there are simply too many inputs to produce a figure without arbitrarily making decisions on what to include or exclude.
Do you include the salaries of overseas service members? What about costs for moving personnel and their families? How about rotational units who are only in a host nation for a few months out of the year? Do you add the cost of running overseas schools for dependent family members? Commissaries? Recreation areas? Uniform clothing sales stores?
How about research and development for the equipment that is stationed there? Should a country pay more if it has F-35s instead of F-16s or ballistic missile defense-capable destroyers instead of non-BMD capable ones?
The list goes on and on, and even then, the list ignores things like sunk costs and the fact those forces are overseas for U.S. interests.

Japan Times

You can read more at the link.

The new Dong Maeng exercise has ended:

South Korea and the United States wrapped up their new, weeklong combined defense exercise on Tuesday, amid worries that the apparent downsizing of their springtime drills could hurt military readiness.
The allies launched the Dong Maeng command post exercise on Monday last week, replacing the Key Resolve exercise to support ongoing diplomacy to denuclearize North Korea and foster lasting peace on the divided peninsula. Dong Maeng is the Korean word for alliance.
The computer simulation exercise was half the duration of the usually two-week Key Resolve. It apparently focused on bolstering the combined defense capabilities with a counterattack portion of its predecessor removed.

The exercise involved members from the South Korean defense ministry, Joint Chiefs of Staff and operations commands of the Army, Navy and Air Force, and those from the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command, U.S. Forces Korea and Indo-Pacific Command.
Despite the allies’ decision to conduct the exercise on a smaller scale and in a low-key manner, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency denounced it as a breach of its joint statements with Seoul and Washington aimed at enhancing bilateral relations.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I doubt we will ever know, but it would interesting to see how much money is in fact saved with the changes to the joint exercise schedule?:

U.S. President Donald Trump said Sunday that he doesn’t want military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea because they are expensive and unhelpful for diplomacy with North Korea.
Trump made the remark on Twitter a day after the allies announced an end to two major combined exercises — Key Resolve and Foal Eagle.
“The reason I do not want military drills with South Korea is to save hundreds of millions of dollars for the U.S. for which we are not reimbursed,” Trump tweeted. “That was my position long before I became President. Also, reducing tensions with North Korea at this time is a good thing!”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

From one who served in Korea:
US & ROK forces are interdependent. We provide the logistics & firepower, they provide the infantry. If we don't train together, we can't work together or protect each other. This endangers South Korea's security & the safety of our troops. https://t.co/SEIRdB3pZX

— Joshua Stanton (@freekorea_us) March 2, 2019

I guess someone must have realized how lame renaming Key Resolve to the “19-1 Exercise” was and have instead now named it the “Dong Maeng” exercise:

South Korea and the United States will launch the new Dong Maeng combined exercise this week to replace their springtime Key Resolve drills, their militaries announced Sunday.
Seoul’s Joint chiefs of Staff (JCS) and the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command (CFC) said that the nine-day command post exercise kicks off on Monday, two days after the allies’ defense chiefs decided to end the annual Key Resolve and Foal Eagle maneuvers to back diplomacy for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
“Dong Maeng, which means alliance in English, has been modified from the previously held spring exercises Key Resolve and Foal Eagle and will focus on strategic, operational and tactical aspects of general military operations on the Korean Peninsula,” they said in a joint press release.
Seoul’s JCS Chairman Gen. Park Han-ki and CFC Commander Gen. Robert Abrams jointly said that the upcoming exercise is important for professional armies to train and maintain “a standard of readiness.”
“These exercises are crucial in sustaining and strengthening the alliance,” they were quoted as saying.
With the Key Resolve effectively supplanted by the new exercise, the allies are expected to conduct low-key battalion-or lower-level drills in place of the Foal Eagle field training throughout the year.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but the Dong Maeng exercise appears to be the Key Resolve, but just under a different name and less fanfare.

I wonder if President Trump is given briefing notes to review before he talks because this is a big difference in numbers he misstated:

U.S. President Donald Trump said South Korea’s payment for the U.S. troop presence will increase further only days after both sides signed a one-year deal for the defense cost sharing. 

“Working with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton, they (South Korea) agreed to pay, yesterday, $500 million (560 billion) more toward their defense,” Trump said in a Cabinet meeting, Tuesday (local time).

On Sunday, Seoul and Washington signed the one-year provisional deal on defense cost sharing, called the Special Measures Agreement (SMA) for the upkeep of United States Forces Korea (USFK).

Under the 2019 SMA, the South will pay 1.04 trillion won toward the upkeep of stationing 28,500 U.S. troops here, up 8.2 percent from the previous year. This is an increase of 78.7 billion won, compared with last year, not the amount stated by Trump.

It remains unclear why the U.S. president made the remark with such an obviously factual error. But it is highly likely that he overstated the amount to score a political point there and raise his approval rating.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.