Tag: US military

Like I had speculated before it does appear that the general officer reductions being considered by the Pentagon could impact USFK and other organizations in the Pacific:

On Monday, Hegseth issued a memo that ordered a minimum 20 percent reduction of four-star active-duty positions and of general officers in the National Guard, as well as an additional minimum 10 percent reduction in general and flag officers — with an aim to “optimize” and “streamline” the U.S. military leadership.

The memo has given rise to speculation that the Pentagon could consider a potential change in the USFK leadership as it seeks to focus primarily on countering evolving threats from China while hoping that regional allies will step up to cope with other challenges, including from North Korea.

Reuters has reported that the USFK commander post and the head of the U.S. Army Pacific might be among the four-star positions that Hegseth might look at.

Asked if the secretary’s order for the reduction would affect the USFK, a U.S. defense official said the Pentagon has no announcements to make at this point.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but if the USFK commander is reduced to a three star then the question becomes will the U.S. handover OPCON to the ROK military? This would mean a ROK four-star would lead the Combined Forces Command and the USFK three-star would be the deputy. Dropping the USFK commander to a three-star would put USFK in line with the three-star that commands USFJ.

Additionally if the USARPAC commander is reduced to a three-star shouldn’t the Pacific Fleet (PACFLT) and Pacific Air Forces (PACAF) commanders also be reduced to three-stars and just leave the INDOPACOM commander as the only four-star in the Pacific?

It will be interesting to see if these general officer cuts will have any impact on USFK:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday announced he has directed the Defense Department to cut at least 20% of its four-star generals and admirals, along with other reductions across the military. “We’re back with more [Defense Department] reforms, this one is general and flag officer reductions.

That’s the official title,” Hegseth said in a video posted on X. “My title is less generals, more GIs.” Hegseth, in a memorandum signed Monday, also called for cuts of at least 20% of general officers in the National Guard and at least 10% of its general and flag officers across the military, which could include one-stars or above. In Hegseth’s video message, he said the cuts would occur in two phases, the first being among the four-stars and the National Guard.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

From the U.S. perspective it makes sense to have the flexibility to redeploy troops from Korea to assist with a Taiwan contingency. However, this Op-Ed in the Korea Times is against because of some hypothetical possibility of Japanese troops on Korea soil:

Japan’s recent articulation of a “One Theater” doctrine — encompassing the East China Sea, Taiwan Strait and the Korean Peninsula — marks a troubling shift in strategic thinking that risks destabilizing Northeast Asia. Proposed by Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani and seemingly welcomed by U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, this doctrine is being presented as a pragmatic response to a volatile regional security environment. In reality, it threatens to undermine national sovereignty, disrupt the delicate geopolitical balance of the Indo-Pacific and draw democratic allies into conflicts not of their choosing.

At its core, the “one battlefield” concept posits that regional flashpoints — such as Taiwan, the Korean Peninsula and the East China Sea — are so interconnected that they must be treated as a unified operational theater. While this might serve military planning purposes, it dangerously flattens political nuance in favor of operational efficiency. It treats sovereign nations not as independent actors with unique security needs, but as interchangeable assets within a broader strategic front defined by Japan and, potentially, the United States.

Of particular concern is the implication that, under this doctrine, U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) could be redeployed from the Korean Peninsula to support operations in the event of a Taiwan contingency. Such a move would not only risk undermining deterrence on the peninsula — where a fragile armistice holds between South and North Korea — but also compromise South Korea’s core defense posture. The Korean Peninsula is not a backwater theater; it is a primary front involving a nuclear-armed adversary. To subordinate Korean security to cross-strait dynamics is both strategically unsound and politically inflammatory.

Historical memory further complicates this issue. Any framework that implicitly or explicitly involves Japanese military activity on or near the Korean Peninsula is politically incendiary. The legacy of Japan’s 1910-45 colonial occupation of Korea continues to cast a long shadow over bilateral relations. For many South Koreans across the political spectrum, the idea of Japanese boots on or near Korean soil — however hypothetical — remains an emotional and constitutional red line. Even under the banner of collective defense, such a scenario would provoke fierce domestic backlash and could fracture regional unity.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but it almost sounds like this author rather have North Korean and Chinese Soldiers on ROK territory instead of Japanese. With that said I cannot think of a scenario where Japanese troops would be needed on Korean soil. Japan’s geography makes it an important location to deploy U.S. aircraft, ships, and supplies from for either a Taiwan or North Korea contingency. They Japanese military will not be needed to deploy troops to Korea.

This author is really using the deployment of Japanese troops to Korea as a red herring to obscure the author’s real concern which is the flexibility of the U.S. to deploy troops from Korea for a Taiwan contingency.

Here is another cultural change coming to the military:

All official monthly celebrations related to race and identity in the Defense Department are banned effective immediately, under an order issued late Friday saying such initiatives divide the force. The decision comes at the start of Black History Month, which typically entails various celebrations at military installations around the world.

The guidance was issued under the title “Identity Months Dead at DoD.” “Our unity and purpose are instrumental to meeting the Department’s warfighting mission. Efforts to divide the force — to put one group ahead of another — erode camaraderie and threaten mission execution,” the Pentagon statement said.

The directive applies to all components and departments in the military, which are prohibited from using official resources, including man-hours, to host celebrations or events related to cultural awareness months. Instead of traditional identity celebrations, military units were encouraged to recognize “the valor and success of military heroes of all races, genders, and backgrounds as we restore our warrior culture and ethos,” the Pentagon said.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Drones are now clearly the present and future of warfare:

An Air Force F-22 Raptor takes off during a demonstration at Langley Air Force Base in Hampton, Virginia. Mysterious drones have been spotted flying around one of the U.S.’s most sensitive military areas, leaving defense

U.S. military personnel reported drones appearing in restricted airspace over Langley Air Force Base in Hampton, Virginia, shortly after sunset during a period of more than two weeks, according to The Wall Street Journal. 

The drones appeared in December last year, according to the report, pulling in officials across the Pentagon, FBI and the Defense Department’s specialized office for investigating unidentified aerial phenomena.

One senior official based at Langley told The Journal that multiple drones headed across Chesapeake Bay and further south toward the city of Norfolk. They reportedly traveled across Naval Station Norfolk, the world’s largest naval port and the main base for the Navy’s vaunted SEAL Team Six. Unless the drones are an imminent threat, by law they cannot by shot down near military bases.

Newsweek

You can read more at the link, but the drone provocations over Langley went on for 17 straight days and DOD could do nothing about it. These low cost drones if outfitted with munitions could have taken out all the over-priced F-22’s that were stationed at Langley.

This Sergeant Major in Korea faced a real nightmare upon trying to retire:

Retired Sgt. Major Eriq Brown first learned of his criminal record in 2021 during a screening for veteran disability benefits as part of his retirement from the Army. He met with a civilian psychologist in South Korea as part of a post-traumatic stress disorder screening. The psychologist asked him whether his pending criminal charge was causing him emotional distress. Brown, who spent 28 years doing human resources work in the Army, said he looked at the doctor perplexed.

Two years prior, a fellow soldier in Korea accused him of assault. She told military police that Brown in a period of three months had hit her on the back of the neck, bumped her in an on-post store at Camp Humphreys and then grabbed her arm after an event. No charges came of the accusations, according to Brown’s service record and documentation that he would later present to the Army Board for Correction of Military Records.

An officer in Brown’s chain of command with 8th Army conducted an internal investigation and found no evidence it happened — even discovering Brown wasn’t on post the day that he supposedly bumped the woman at a store, according to correction board documents. He was never arrested or detained or read his rights. There was no court-martial or nonjudicial punishment. Instead, Brown received a reprimand in his personnel file for unprofessional behavior. The letter scolded Brown for touching the woman’s neck and then reaching for her arm after she had told him that she did not want to be touched.

“You have exhibited poor judgment,” Brig. Gen. Patrick Donahoe wrote in the reprimand dated Aug. 21, 2019. Nowhere in the letter does he write Brown was arrested or committed a crime. Sitting in that doctor’s office, Brown realized none of this was behind him. The ordeal had left him with a criminal arrest listed on his background check with no resolution — as if he is still waiting to face judgment for a misdemeanor assault charge. “Think about the embarrassment of that,” said Brown, now 47. “I definitely wouldn’t let my children go in the military after this.”

Stars & Stripes

You can read much more at the link, but what is going on is that Soldiers accused of crimes are entered into an FBI data base. Later when it is found that no crime occurred their alleged crime is still showing in the FBI database as if it did occur and it is very difficult to get it removed.

Of course this is not something done in the civilian sector, but in the military this policy was enacted as an over correction from a mass shooting committed by an Air Force veteran in 2007. That veteran had a domestic violence conviction during his time in the Air Force that was not entered into the FBI database which allowed him to buy a gun. Why doesn’t the military just enter people into the database that are actually convicted of a crime?

This is a tough spot the Pentagon is in because is they relent on the paid TDY for abortions this will signal to every other Senator that they can get what they want by following this same playbook:

President Biden is sharply escalating his criticism of Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville, highlighting his blockade of military nominations and using him to criticize other right-wing Republicans he characterizes as extreme, obstructionist and willing to jeopardize the country’s national security.

Biden, who has often cited Republicans outside the congressional leadership as emblematic of what he calls their party’s radicalism, warned in harsher tones and with more specificity this week that Tuberville is undermining the servicemen and women who are putting their lives at risk.

“Something dangerous is happening,” Biden said Thursday night, speaking at the Truman Civil Rights Symposium. “The Republican Party used to always support the military, but today, they are undermining the military. The senior senator from Alabama, who claims to support our troops, is now blocking more than 300 military [nominations] with his extreme political agenda.”

For months, Tuberville has refused to let the Senate approve any senior military nominations by unanimous consent unless the Defense Department changes its policy of providing travel expenses for service women seeking an abortion. The policy is a backdoor way for the Pentagon to facilitate even late-term abortions, Tuberville argues, saying last week on the Senate floor that “anyone who calls themselves pro-life needs to stand up and be counted right now.”

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Here is what we know about Travis King, the U.S. Soldier who ran across the DMZ to North Korea laughing earlier this week:

Officials say Pvt. 2nd Class King has been a cavalry scout with the U.S. Army since January 2021. 

The 23-year-old had been stationed in South Korea, but had recently served two months in a prison there on charges of assault, the Associated Press reported.

Several South Korean media outlets report that King had punched a South Korean national in a club last September. He had also been fined 5 million won ($3,942) for causing public damage and being uncooperative with police during his arrest.

According to an account from the Chosun Ilbo newspaper, citing legal sources, King yelled obscenities at South Korean police as he kicked the doors and interior of a police vehicle.

CBS News reports that King was released to U.S. officials at the military hub in the country about a week ago.

Before bolting into North Korea, King was being escorted to an airport outside of Seoul where he was expected to board a plane bound for Fort Bliss, Texas, to face military disciplinary action. 

Officials escorted him through airport security, but King somehow managed to ditch the escort and make his way out of the terminal and back to the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea. 

That is where officials said King, who was dressed in civilian clothes, joined a tour of the Korean border village of Panmunjom.

NPR

You can read more at the link, but King had to have planned this out because here are the rules for going on a tour of Panmunjom on the DMZ:

According to the UNC rules the roster of the tourists to Panmunjum should be reported 48 hours (2 days) prior to the tour briefing time (13:45) in the camp Bonifas on the tour day. So person who is interested in this tour should send your name, passport number and nationality to us at least 3 days before.

KoreaDMZtour.com

The fact he claimed that he lost his passport to not board his flight is further evidence of how planned this was:

On Monday, the American solider was escorted by military police from Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, to Incheon International Airport. The solider then went through a security checkpoint alone because the military police officers were not allowed to accompany him.

King arrived at the boarding gate, but did not board the plane. 

“At the gate, he approached an American Airlines official and reported that his passport was missing, and was able to return out of the departure gate under the escort of an airline employee,” an official at Incheon International Airport told The Korea Times, adding that King appears to have lied about his missing passport.  

Once a passenger goes through the customs and immigration checkpoint at Incheon airport, he or she cannot go back to the terminal without a valid reason approved by an authorized personnel. 

Korea Times

So this was clearly not a drunken spur of the moment type of defection like we saw decades ago with Charles Robert Jenkins. King had this planned out at least three days in advance. The closest defection to this I can think of is PFC Joseph White who defected in 1982 likely because he was forbidden by his unit leadership from meeting his Korean girlfriend. So he got pissed off and crossed the DMZ into North Korea. In 1985 North Korea reported that White died in a river drowning. Will a similar fate await King?