USFK Commander Supports South Korean Plan to Close DMZ Guard Posts

It looks like General Brooks is keeping an open mind about this ROK proposal:

Gen. Vincent Brooks, leader of U.S. Forces Korea, the United Nations Command and the Combined Forces Command, attends a press conference at the Seoul Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Wednesday, Aug. 22, 2018.

The top U.S. commander in South Korea expressed support Wednesday for a plan to remove some guard posts from the tense border, saying it’s a “reasonable” risk that may help denuclearization talks with the North.

South Korea’s defense ministry has said it plans to close about 10 guard posts along the Demilitarized Zone and expects the North to reciprocate as part of a bilateral summit agreement to ease tensions.

Gen. Vincent Brooks — who wears three hats as the leader of U.S. Forces Korea, the United Nations Command and the Combined Forces Command — said he supports the initiative to reduce tensions and build trust between the rival nations.

“I have some concerns about what that means militarily to the ability to defend along the Military Demarcation Line and in depth beyond it,” he said at a press conference at the Seoul Foreign Correspondents’ Club.

“I believe that there’s a reasonable amount of risk that’s involved in this, not an excessive amount of risk,” to the defense of South Korea, he said.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

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Flyingsword
Flyingsword
6 years ago

actually those sound like nice words for, “this is the dumbest f*#cking idea ever.”

Ole Tanker
Ole Tanker
6 years ago

Defensive fortifications are tribute to man’s stupidity.

JoeC
JoeC
6 years ago

“… plan to remove some guard posts …”

The public may not be given the actual details but I can see where maybe if you’ve had a guard post every hundred meters for sixty years, using modern technology you can have the same capability with guard posts every two hundred meters.

HK
HK
6 years ago

You folks are really living in the dark ages. Back in the day, the U.S. sector had over 15 GP’s inside the DMZ covering their one-mile area of the DMZ with over five OP’s over watching them. Nowadays, they’re no longer needed ever since the Korean government eight-years ago installed wall-to-wall CCTV cameras along with heat sensors and motion detectors that work in tandem with automated gun-robots made by Samsung Techwin that can fire machine guns and launch 40mm grenades from remote stations. Welcome to the future where even the grunt has been made redundant. https://www.cnet.com/news/korean-machine-gun-robots-start-dmz-duty/

Flyingsword
Flyingsword
6 years ago

Yeah, that high tech stuff seems to be working really well. https://edition.cnn.com/2012/10/15/world/asia/south-korea-north-defector/index.html
And it is more that just guard post, it is pieces and parts of the whole defensive belt system.

setnaffa
setnaffa
6 years ago

HK is so booooooring!

GI, why can’t we get better trolls? Even Youtube has interesting flamebaiters…

setnaffa
setnaffa
6 years ago

BTW, the US Army Divisions in the early 1950s had more gun barrels (rifles, machine guns including AA, and artillery) than any time before or since.

Serving during the Cold War and Working in IT has given me a different perspective than folks who don’t believe in evil and think technology can do anything.

BTW, GPS will be the first technology lost in a real war, so now how do you aim anything? Armies fight like they train. The Norks don’t train with fancy technology. They aren’t deterred (as shown by the defector) by intestinal parasites and vehicle barriers and even being wounded. They don’t train in “Reality TV” shows with chubby comedians and K-Pop singers.

War is a crime against humanity, and the Norks are conditioned to approach it as a religious act.

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