Could USFK Cost Sharing Issue Be Used to Cut US Troops Levels in South Korea?
It will be interesting to see if the USFK cost sharing issue is in fact used to drawdown troops from South Korea:
While the United States and North Korea try to revive nuclear talks, another dispute is simmering on the southern half of the peninsula over funding for U.S. forces.
Stars & Stripes
Seoul and Washington failed to agree on a new cost-sharing deal for the 28,500 U.S. servicemembers stationed in South Korea before the latest five-year contract expired on Dec. 31.
That has raised fears that President Donald Trump may threaten to draw down forces as he prepares for a possible second summit with North Korea.
The longtime allies held 10 rounds of talks since March but remained deadlocked as the new year began over Washington’s reported demand that South Korea increase its contribution by as much as 150 percent.
You can read more at the link, but analysts do have a point that if troops levels are reduced the Trump administration can blame South Korea for not increasing their contributions to the funding of the US-ROK alliance instead of saying it is a concession to North Korea.
If troops levels were to be cut it seems the easiest thing to do would be to stop the rotational brigade from deploying to South Korea.
My service was all pretty much within the US. My only experience of service in Korea is one visit to DHL for a corporate function during a business trip (they needed one more guy in a suit to balance the Korean customer team) and shopping in outside Yongsan and K-55. Not at all the same as many folks here.
Deploying to Korea can be rough on younger folks without supportive NCOs. Sometimes, that support might need to be restrictive. A lot of folks under 30 don’t know what seems like fun can leave permanent bad memories. A lot of folks over 30 foolishly assume the memories will fade.
Heck, being stationed 1,000 miles or more from home even within the US can result in a lot of the same issues. One of these days I might work up a set of “lunch and learn” slide decks after chatting up a couple of my retired service buddies. Or not.
No need for any US ground forces to be in Korea. As far as the rotational force, that is a complete waste of time and money for all involved.
Trump is a Wussy, he’ll never cut troops in Korea!
Setnaffa said:
“My only experience of service in Korea is one visit to DHL for a corporate function during a business trip… …and shopping in outside Yongsan and K-55.”
So just out of curiosity, what brought you the `the Drop then? 😯 ❓