Category: US-ROK Alliance

It looks like the ROK government is trying to build trust with the local protesters in Seongju in an attempt to hopefully open the road to the THAAD site:

Vice Defense Minister Suh Choo-suk told a group of residents of Seongju County, North Gyeongsang, that the government will “guarantee” their participation in the environmental impact appraisal of the U.S.-led Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) battery.

Suh sought out Seongju residents on Tuesday at the Soseong-ri town hall, near the former golf course where the U.S. Forces Korea’s Thaad battery is partially deployed. Some have interpreted his remarks as suggesting that the government plans to conduct a full environmental impact appraisal, which would take at least one year, as opposed to a smaller study.

Under the Environmental Impact Assessment Act, a small-scale appraisal does not require gathering input from residents and can take under six months to complete.

Seongju residents and Won Buddhists have been protesting the deployment, especially the stealthy, expedited manner in which it was moved to the golf course in late April under the previous government without a proper environmental appraisal.  (……….)

“The residents are most concerned about including a delegation while measuring electromagnetic waves,” he said.

The vice minister elaborated that he thus emphasized to them the principle of guaranteeing their participation, and that the Ministry of National Defense is reviewing how to do so. But he said it not official that the assessment will be undertaken.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

If the residents want to go measure electromagnetic waves they can do it right now.  They can purchase their own detection device and stand at their homes or farms and see what electromagnetic waves they detect.  They are not going to detect anything though because a group of Korean reporters were invited to the THAAD site on Guam and have already measured electromagnetic waves and found nothing.

What is so stupid about this claim is do these activists really think the US military would just let their personnel on the site get exposed to dangerous electromagnetic waves much less local residents?  Do they think soldiers on Guam just keep dropping dead and the US military just keeps replacing them with no one noticing?

It appears that President Moon can’t keep his THAAD excuses straight and USFK has had to correct the record:

The U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) said Friday it has an “original” agreement with South Korea to deploy the THAAD missile defense system here as soon as possible.

It was in response to President Moon Jae-in’s view that the deployment process has been “accelerated for some reason” that he does not know.

He has apparently questioned the transparency of the related procedures, especially at home.

“Originally, the alliance decided to deploy THAAD as soon as able in order to substantially improve our layered missile defense against North Korean missile threats,” a USFK spokesperson told Yonhap News Agency.

She would not discuss specifics on the timeline, however, citing “operational security reasons.”

The official stressed that the U.S. “trusts” South Korea’s official stance that the THAAD deployment was an “alliance decision.”

“We have worked closely and have been fully transparent with the ROK government throughout this process,” she said, using the acronym for South Korea’s formal name, the Republic of Korea.

It’s rare for the USFK to issue a statement on the sensitive THAAD issue. It usually leaves it to the Pentagon or refers media to South Korea’s defense ministry.

It came a day after a foreign news report said that Moon, a liberal leader who took office in early May, took issue with the timeline of the deployment of the U.S. strategic asset on the peninsula.

In an interview with Reuters, Moon was quoted as saying that just one THAAD interceptor launcher was originally scheduled to be installed this year, with five others to arrive in 2018.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but the ROK government and I believe President Moon knew about the six launchers and have just been using this for domestic political reasons to appease his anti-US base.  His upcoming summit with President Trump could be very interesting.

I think the interviewer could have used a better word choice, but I think this is much to do about nothing:

South Korea or its head of state Moon Jae-in does not need permission from the U.S. president or anyone else to engage North Korea in dialogue, Seoul’s presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said Wednesday.

“Resumption of dialogue with North Korea may need to be pursued in close cooperation and consultation with the United States, but South Korea does not need to be allowed by the U.S. to do so,” Kwun Hyuk-ki, a Cheong Wa Dae spokesman, told Yonhap News Agency.

The remarks came in reaction to a question by a U.S. journalist in a recent interview with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, in which the interviewer from U.S. broadcaster CBS stated it was not clear whether U.S. President Donald Trump would “agree to allow” his South Korean counterpart to negotiate with the North Koreans.  (…..)

Many South Koreans reacted with anger in online postings.

“The president must have been very offended when given the question. He still managed very well,” one Internet user said on a local internet bulletin board.

Without interpreting what the word “allow” may have intended to mean, the Cheong Wa Dae spokesman flatly dismissed the notion that the South Korean president would ask for U.S. permission to engage with North Korea.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but President Moon’s interview with Norah O’Donnell can be viewed at this link.

Here is another example of strategic messaging against North Korea that the Canadians are ready to stand with the ROK if needed:

South Korea said Monday it will hold a combined live-fire naval exercise with the United States and Canada this week in its southern waters.

Hosted by South Korea’s Maritime Task Flotilla Seven (MTF7), the three-day training exercise will be staged in waters near Jeju Island from Friday, according to the Navy.

It will involve five South Korean warships, including the Aegis cruiser DDG-992 Yulgok Yii, P-3C Orion maritime surveillance aircraft and Lynx multi-role planes as well as the USS Dewey (DDG-105), an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer from the U.S. Navy, and MH-60R helicopters.

Two major Canadian frigates — Winnipeg and Ottawa — and SH-3 choppers will also take part in the practice.

The three sides plan to hold various drills on interdiction, air defense, anti-submarine operations and ballistic missile detection, along with live-fire training, said the Navy.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

Still, it's not quite fair to blame Moon CI for Moon JI's ham-handed scheme to whip up anti-THAAD sentiment. https://t.co/o5qSb5y0Cy pic.twitter.com/sb0RePO2J7

— Joshua Stanton (@freekorea_us) June 19, 2017

To properly study the effects the THAAD system has on putting greens and sand bunkers the environmental assessment has to be conducted through four seasons according to this ROK Presidential advisor:

The adviser also said that the environmental assessment that South Korea plans to conduct over the U.S. THAAD missile defense system could take one year because the study should take into consideration the deployment’s impact over four seasons.  [Yonhap]

Here are the questions I have which I doubt any journalist will bother tracking down.  How long did the environmental assessment take to approve bulldozing the top of a mountain and installing the golf course where the THAAD site is?  Also how long did the environmental assessment to install the ROK military’s Green Pine radars take?

Here is an update from the anti-THAAD frontlines in Seongju county:

In Soseong-ri, a small farming village of about 80 residents in southern South Korea, a band of elderly women is at the forefront of protests against the deployment of a U.S. anti-missile system next to their neighborhood.

A dozen or so women, in their 60s to 80s, stand watch each day around the clock to make sure no military vehicles enter the deployment site through the only road to it — a former golf course owned by a leading conglomerate, the Lotte Group.

The vigil has forced the U.S. military to use helicopters instead to shuttle fuel and supplies to the site hosting the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system.  (………..)

The women, who brandish canes and umbrellas at the military helicopters and shout for them to go away every time one flies through the village, say they have no interest in the politics of the deployment.

But they protest, longing for the peace they had before.

“I can’t sleep. I’m taking sedatives at night but I still get only two hours of sleep,” said 87-year-old Na Wi-bun, who lives within a kilometer (0.62 mile) of the site and says she can hear the generator that powers THAAD humming around the clock.  [Reuters]

You can read more at the link, but it is ironic they are complaining about noise when their protest is causing the noise.  The helicopters would not be flying if trucks were allowed to drive up the road to the site.  Also the generators as we have seen in with the radar site in Japan can be muffled and the noise ultimately eliminated when the radar is hooked up to commercial power.  However, if construction crews cannot drive up the road to hook up to commercial power then the noise will remain.

Ian Buruma a very notable author in regards to Asian affairs had this to say in the New Yorker about the US military presence in South Korea and Japan:

The problem is that the existing order, put in place by the United States after the Second World War, might be exactly what hampers efforts to thicken that web. In a sense, America is experiencing the dilemmas typical of an empire in its twilight years. Imperial powers in the middle of the twentieth century used to argue that they couldn’t withdraw as long as their colonial subjects were not ready to rule themselves. But, as the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan once explained to a rather baffled William F. Buckley, Jr., the continuance of colonial rule would not make them more ready. If the United States were to give up its policing duties in Asia too quickly, chaos might ensue. The longer its Asian allies remain dependent on U.S. military protection, however, the harder it will be for them to take care of themselves.

The most desirable way to balance the rising power of China would be the creation of a regional defense alliance stretching from South Korea to Burma. Japan, as the leading economic and military power, would be the logical choice to lead such a coalition. This would mean, in an ideal world, that Japan should revise its pacifist constitution after a national debate, led not by a government of chauvinistic revanchists but by a more liberal administration. But we do not live in an ideal world. Abe’s revisionism (he has currently set 2020 as a deadline for the amended constitution) is unlikely to achieve its aims in Japan. Most Japanese are no keener than most Germans to play a major military role once again. And as long as Japanese leaders insist on whitewashing their country’s recent past they will never persuade other countries in the region to trust them.

This is the status quo that dependence on the United States has frozen into place. As much as Abe’s government wishes to remain under the American military umbrella, the American postwar order, including the pacifist constitution, still inflames right-wing resentment. Yet Washington, and especially the Pentagon, which shapes much of U.S. policy in East Asia, has consistently supported conservative governments in Japan, seeing them as an anti-Communist bulwark. Meanwhile, as long as the United States is there to keep the peace, the governments of Japan and South Korea will continue to snipe at each other, instead of strengthening their alliance.  [The New Yorker]

You can read much more at the link, but Buruma’s comments are based on a book he reviewed titled “Avoiding War with China: Two Nations, One World” by Amitai Etzioni.  This analysis seems pretty accurate, does anyone disagree with it?

Like I have beens saying President Moon is not stupid and the THAAD is not going anywhere.  The whole current environmental assessment issue with the THAAD deployment is just domestic politics:

Chung told reporters Friday that the decision to postpone the full deployment was a domestic measure to ensure a “transparent and democratic process.” He didn’t give a timeframe.

“Our government plans to deal with the THAAD deployment with a few principles while being fully aware of North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats,” Chung said. “The government has no intention to fundamentally change what it has promised under the Korea-U.S. alliance.”

“THAAD was a decision made to protect South Korea and U.S. Forces Korea from North Korea’s growing threats,” he added. “The government will not handle such a decision lightly just because there has been a government change.”

Many South Koreans oppose THAAD because they fear it will have negative economic and environmental effects while being positioned mainly to protect U.S. forces in southern areas. China also strongly objects to the anti-missile battery, fearing it can be used against its military.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link, but the talking point that the THAAD is just there to protect US forces in the southern sections of the country like much of the criticism of the THAAD is stupid.    First of all it is the US-ROK alliance which means the THAAD will protect ROK assets as well.  The US military is not going to let ROK bases get blown up.  Secondly, if a nuclear warhead is launched at a US or ROK base at Busan for example, shooting the ballistic missile down protects the entire city not just the military base.

Finally the environmental concerns talking point has already been disproven and yet people continue to repeat it.  The Congresswoman from the one other location in the world that has an forward deployed THAAD battery, has said Guam has had no problems with the system in the four years it has been there.

I don’t mind criticism of the THAAD deployment, but like so many other issues between the ROK and the US the criticism is largely not fact based.

This was actually clever what the Korean Defense Ministry did to comply with ROK environmental laws that would have delayed the deployment of the THAAD missile defense system for up to year:

A fact-finding mission into the deployment of a U.S. antimissile system in Korea in April raised a new suspicion that the Ministry of National Defense tried to sidestep an environmental study required by the law, the Blue House said Monday.

Following the discovery, President Moon Jae-in ordered a proper environmental study, effectively stalling the deployment schedule to be completed by the end of this year.

The probe also found that Lt. Gen. Wee Seung-ho, deputy defense minister of policy, has ordered his team to delete crucial pieces of information from a report to Moon’s security team, Yoon Young-chan, senior secretary for public relations, said in a press briefing.

Moon ordered last week an investigation into the ministry’s failure to fully brief his team about the U.S. military’s delivery of four additional launchers for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) antimissile system.

The probe identified Wee as responsible for the omission and revealed that the ministry tried to avoid the environmental impact study. The conclusion was reported to Moon at the senior secretariat meeting on Monday.

Despite protests by Beijing and Moscow, Seoul and Washington agreed on the deployment of a Thaad battery in July 2016.

Key components of a Thaad battery, including a radar system and two missile launchers, were installed on a former golf course in Seongju, North Gyeongsang, on April 26 – less than two weeks before the May 9 election that brought Moon to power.

A Thaad battery typically consists of six launchers, 48 interceptors, a fire control and communication unit and radar. The military authorities of Korea and the United States planned to complete the deployment before the end of this year.

According to Yoon, the ministry created a plan on Nov. 25, 2016 that it will offer the Seongju site to the U.S. military in two separate transfers. Of the 700,000 square-meter (173-acre) site, a 328,779 square-meter piece was transferred in the first phase and another piece, about 370,000 square meters, was planned to be offered later in the second phase.

“By designating the first phase site to be smaller than 330,000 square meters, the ministry planned that only a summary environmental impact study was needed,” Yoon said. The law requires a full-scale environmental study when the site is larger than 330,000 square meters.

Yoon then said the first phase site is an odd-looking inverse U-shaped piece of land. “The shape was abnormally designed in order to exclude the land that is supposed to be inside the U shape,” he said.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but General Wee claims that he ordered the deletion in the report about the four launchers because the US military asked him to.  My guess would be that the US military wanted to keep the location of the launchers secret for operational security reasons.  We will see how this plays out, but my assessment is that the Moon administration will use this to maximum political advantage to appease his base without actually changing the deployment decision.