Category: US-ROK Alliance

Here is an analysis piece in the Stars & Stripes about what the resignation of Defense Secretary James Mattis means for the US-ROK alliance:

Mattis didn’t mention South Korea, but his departure will deprive officials in Seoul of somebody they considered a voice of reason in the Trump administration. It also comes as the president’s surprise decision on Syria earlier this week underscored the unpredictability of U.S. foreign policy.
“It’s certainly going to cause concern, I think, in South Korea,” said Jenny Town, a Korea specialist at the Washington, D.C.-based Stimson Center. “Mattis is one of the few people they looked to for direction and reason in an administration where it has been often difficult to decipher what our policy is and where our relationship is going.”

She noted that Trump has said he may be willing to pull troops out of South Korea to save money.
“It’s hard to see where this goes until we have a better sense of who’s coming next, but it’s also hard to see that this move is going to improve relations both with our friends or our adversaries at this point,” Town said.

[Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but trying to equate withdrawing troops from Syria with withdrawing USFK is quite a stretch as speculated on later in the article. The US has treaty obligations with South Korea that cannot cause a quick troops withdrawal like what is expected in Syria.

Something that could lead to a partial US troop withdrawal in South Korea it is the ongoing US-ROK cost sharing negotiations. Another possibility to save money as well as send a message to North Korea if denuclearization talks are not going well, is restricting US military dependents from South Korea:

The friction escalated in January when Trump ordered Mattis to end the practice of allowing the family members of U.S. troops stationed in South Korea to accompany them during their deployments. But Mattis, with the assistance of chief of staff John Kelly, put off implementing the directive, say one defense official and one former administration official, angering Trump.
Trump repeatedly said he wanted to sign an order changing the policy on military dependents in South Korea, but Mattis and other officials, including Kelly, tried to stall him, according to three former officials. “It was kind of like a game of tag. There were plenty of other people, in addition to Mattis, who slow-walked that,” the former official said. The order was never implemented.
“He knows that he told them to do it and they didn’t do it,” another former senior White House official said.

NBC News via a reader tip

I guess we will see how all of this plays out over the next year.

It's out of the news cycle & off most people's radar screens at the moment. But the failure to conclude the U.S.-ROK Special Measures Agreement (SMA) negotiations is an opportunity for Trump to drop another chaos bomb & shred the U.S.-ROK alliance. Don't say I didn't warn you.

— Daniel Pinkston (@dpinkston) December 21, 2018

As I have been saying, I think these cost sharing talks are linked to the North Korean nuclear negotiations.  If the Trump administration drops sanctions for little to nothing in return from North Korea, the Moon administration will likely give them the cost sharing deal they prefer: 

Korea and the United States failed to strike an agreement on how much Seoul will pay to station American troops on the peninsula, a government official here said Friday. Senior diplomats from the allies held three-day talks in Seoul to set the amount of Seoul’s financial contributions for the 28,500-strong U.S. Forces Korea (USFK). 

It marked the 10th round of bargaining, as the current five-year accord expires at the end of this month.

The two sides remain divided over the total amount of Seoul’s financial contributions, a contract period and some other contentious issues, according to the official. “Again, nothing is agreed until everything is agreed,” he told reporters on condition of anonymity. “The two sides will continue consultations through diplomatic channels.” He ruled out the possibility of another round of formal talks within this month.

In case no deal is reached in the coming two weeks, he agreed, it’s expected to cause a problem when the USFK has to pay wages for Korean civilian workers. About a third of Seoul’s payment is used for the wages of around 8,000 workers. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

It seems to me that if there is no money designated to pay the employees than of course they will need to be put on leave: 

The U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) has sent a letter to the union of its Korean employees stating that it will place them on unpaid leave from mid-April 2019, if the ongoing defense-cost sharing negotiations between Seoul and Washington are not settled by the end of this year.

In the letter to USFK Korean Employees Union President Choe Ung-sik, USFK headquarters’ Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Michael Minihan said, “Unfortunately, unless the ongoing SMA negotiations can be completed in a timely manner to avoid a lapse in labor funding, we will be required to issue a general furlough notice.”

“Unless a new SMA is agreed to, it will be necessary to implement the furlough effective April 15, 2019,” Minihan said.

This is viewed by some observers as an attempt to gain concessions from Korea as the negotiations over sharing the cost of stationing American troops here are making little headway. They say that the U.S. is “taking Korean workers hostage” to demand a bigger payment from the government.

Time has been running out in the negotiations in relation to the Special Measures Agreement (SMA), a five-year defense contract between Seoul and Washington. It will expire Dec. 31.

The notice may possibly affect as many as 8,700 whose wages are co-paid by both the government and the USFK.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

I still believe that a final US-ROK cost sharing deal will be reached as part of the ongoing negotiations with North Korea.  If Washington drops sanctions like Seoul wants than I think they will give the Trump administration the deal they want on cost sharing.  I guess we will see what happens: 

South Korea and the United States will resume negotiations over military cost-sharing issues in Seoul next week. 

Seoul’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday the tenth round of negotiations concerning the bilateral Special Measures Agreement(SMA) will be held for three days from Tuesday, where the two sides will have in-depth discussions to coordinate stances based on the previous talks. 

According to the ministry, the foreign ministers of the two countries agreed during their meeting in Washington on Thursday that they will continue to encourage the negotiators to produce mutually satisfying results.   [KBS World Radio]

You can read the rest at the link.

As I have been saying watch and see if the Key Resolve exercise get scheduled to be executed this spring:

South Korea and the United States will likely suspend their joint field exercises next year amid the detente reached on the peninsula with North Korea.

Both sides are in discussions on whether to postpone their annual large-scale Foal Eagle combined tactical training exercise slated for March, but no official consensus has been reached yet.

“The military authorities may suspend major joint military exercises next year, including Foal Eagle, but nothing specific has been decided between the defense chiefs of the two countries,” a military official said Thursday without elaborating.

However, Seoul and Washing will carry out a series of computer-simulated command post exercises next year, as they do not pose a serious security threat to the North.

The two countries are known to be discussing conducting the Key Resolve computerized command post drill in March despite the possible suspension of its real time counterpart, Foal Eagle.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but the fact that Key Resolve is being discussed could be a signal that the Trump administration doesn’t think the denuclearization and subsequent peace overtures are serious.  This also gives the Trump administration a bargaining chip if a second Trump-Kim summit is held.

Even if the person’s email was hacked why was state agencies sending classified documents over an unclassified network to begin with?  This is worse than the alleged hacking:

Cheong Wa Dae is looking into possible hacking cases, in which emails intended to create a rift in alliance between South Korea and the United States have been sent out using the accounts of at least two senior officials.

Citing recipients of these emails, the presidential office said this is to either steal classified information on North Korea policy or drive a wedge into the South Korea-U.S. alliance by using fake documents.

“We take each case very seriously and asked the National Police Agency to look into them thoroughly,” a presidential aide said asking not to be named.

The latest cases increased concerns over fake news at an alarming rate. This was because vernacular newspaper The Asia Business Daily, after obtaining a fake document on the U.S. mistrust of South Korea, published a related story on Nov. 27.

“It is way beyond a misreport and what we’re facing is the most malicious case in journalism history,” said Cheong Wa Dae spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom. “The way false information has been produced and disseminated is very elaborate.”

He added Cheong Wa Dae will “hunt down those who are responsible,” claiming the information itself was aimed at creating a rift between the two allies and therefore is anti-governmental.

In the first case, someone who pretended to be Presidential Secretary for State Affairs Yun Kun-young sent mails at the beginning of this year to multiple ministry officials.

The suspect then demanded recipients to hand over digital documents related to North Korea policy.

It remains uncertain how many shared classified information with the suspect.

One of the recipients raised a question over why such sensitive content was sent through Yun’s private email address, and not the one created by Cheong Wa Dae. He called Yun to confirm accordingly.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but they don’t know who conducted the alleged hacking.  Considering that the alleged hacking was done with the purpose of creating a rift in the US-ROK alliance, China or North Korea seem like likely suspects.

It looks like many servicemembers serving stateside will not be going TDY to Korea for Foal Eagle:

Seoul and Washington will scale back a major annual joint military drill next spring, the Foal Eagle exercise, said U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis Wednesday, a concession to ongoing denuclearization talks with North Korea.

Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon in Washington, “Foal Eagle is being reorganized a bit to keep it at a level that will not be harmful to diplomacy.”

South Korea and the United States have suspended several major joint exercises this year following the June 12 North Korea-U.S. summit, including the Ulchi-Freedom Guardian drills, which would have happened in August.

Vigilant Ace, a massive joint aerial exercise scheduled for December, was also suspended last month after a meeting between South Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo and Mattis. The United States and South Korea agreed to conduct a review by Nov. 15 and reach a decision on plans for large-scale military exercises next year by Dec. 1.

“We have taken a decision,” Mattis said Wednesday. “We are not canceling exercises. We are realigning one exercise.” He did not elaborate further.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but the article did not state what the way ahead is for the Key Resolve exercise that usually overlaps with Foal Eagle.  Key Resolve is a large command post exercise involving senior US and ROK leadership usually held in the spring time.  Key Resolve was the last major exercise conducted jointly with the ROK before the current “peace mood” has caused the cancelling of a number of exercises.

My theory on the current US-ROK cost sharing negotiations is that this will ultimately be tied to a successful second Trump-Kim summit and US dropping sanctions on North Korea.  If the Trump administration drops sanctions I suspect that the Moon administration will cut a favorable US-ROK cost sharing deal to pay back President Trump.  If sanctions are not dropped the Moon administration will likely continue to play hardball on this issue:

Senior diplomats of the two sides had three-day talks on the Special Measures Agreement (SMA) to set the amount of Seoul’s financial contributions for the 28,500-strong U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) in Honolulu, Hawaii. It was the ninth round of bargaining, as the existing accord, which took effect in 2014, is to expire at the end of this year.

“There was some progress, but no final agreement was reached,” the foreign ministry official told reporters on the condition of anonymity.

It seems like the Trump administration is going to keep playing along with the so called peace process by smiling for photo ops and saying the right things.  However, so far it appears they will not drop sanctions until North Korea does something to show they are serious about denuclearization.  At some point this will come to a crisis and it seems the Trump administration wants the Kim regime to be the ones blamed for starting the crisis:

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence asked South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Thursday to communicate and talk more closely with North Korea, Moon’s spokesman said.

The remark, made during a meeting with Moon in Singapore on the sidelines of regional summits, is seen as a call for Moon to play greater roles so that upcoming talks between the U.S. and the North, including a second summit, will be able make progress.

Pence was quoted as telling reporters after the meeting with Moon at the Suntec convention center that U.S. President Donald Trump plans to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un next year and that the two sides are discussing details.

“My understanding is that (Pence) made a request to Moon separately even as talks are under way between the North and the U.S.,” the South’s presidential spokesman, Kim Eui-kyeom, told reporters.

Moon agreed to play active roles while closely communicating with both sides, Kim said.

Kim said that there was no mention of sanctions during the meeting.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.