Report Claims Pentagon Has Offered USFK Troop Withdrawal Options to the President
This shouldn’t be surprising news to anyone following the US-ROK cost sharing negotiations:
The Pentagon has offered the White House options to reduce American troop levels in South Korea, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
Citing unnamed U.S. officials, the paper said the options were presented in March following a broader review of options for withdrawing troops from around the world, including in the Middle East, Africa, Europe and Asia.
The White House requested the review last fall, and by December, the Pentagon had come up with broad ideas, it said.
No decision has yet been made to reduce the number of U.S. forces stationed in South Korea from the current 28,500, according to the WSJ.
Yonhap
You can read more at link, but President Trump has already reduced U.S. troop levels in Germany over cost sharing issues and he has been having the same monetary disagreements with South Korea. This report I suspect was leaked to the Wall Street Journal in order to pressure the Korean side that Trump is serious about USFK troop withdrawals.
However, this all may be playing out as Korean President Moon Jae-in wants it to play out. Moon is a very skilled politician that needs to keep the Korean right at bay and public anxiety down. If he openly advocated for a USFK withdrawal, that would give the South Korean right an issue to strongly attack him with and cause much public anxiety after decades of security guarantees provided by US forces.
This is why President Moon has been saying all the right things that USFK should remain, to include claiming Kim Jong-un understands this as well. However, if troop withdrawals do happen he has political cover to not be blamed for it by claiming President Trump’s monetary demands were unreasonable which is a position likely a majority of Koreans believe.
You are actually blaming this on Moon? Let’s look at Moon’s counter proposal for Trump’s $5 billion demand, shall we? Moon proposed 13% increase for the first year, and 11% increase after each year, until year five, at which point the annual cost for the South Korean portion of the payment would be $1.3 billion in total. This is more than a fair proposal, and it doesn’t sound like Moon wants to see the USFK out of Korea.
If anything, it’s Trump that wants to pull out of Korea, and he’s doing it by making it impossible for the South Korean government to agree to terms. What Trump wants from South Korea, it’s politically impossible. Even the staunch right-wing pro-US Koreans including your favorite East Asian Research Forum are against South Korea giving into US demands for $5 billion. Even they are saying Trump is hopeless, maybe it’s time to accept US withdraws and start think about getting nukes (which Moon is against).
Where did I blame Moon? Is said that if this is a U.S. negotiating tactic by leaking this story to the Wall Street Journal it may not work because this may be what the Moon administration wants to happen. If the Trump administration wants this too, then both sides get what they want.
Two things are in play here. President Trump has stated he wants to bring troops home from around the world whether a country pays (which means troops are more likely to stay) or not. Second Moon is known to be anti-US troops. He was involved in the anti-US riots in the 1980s, sided with elements that stirred anti-US elements in the 1990s & 2000s. The DP has also been hostile toward US troops more and more openly in the past 20 or so years. I served with KATUSAs like Moon in the 1980s, these are now the men in power in the ROK…
Whether Moon was anti-US troops in the 1980s or not is immaterial now, especially when he has offered a steady large annual increases for the next 5 years which is not exactly a good way to get rid of the US troops if he wanted to. Even if PGH or even Park Chung Hee was in power today and not Moon, Trump isn’t going to get what he wants, simply because what he’s demanding is totally unreasonable. Personally speaking, I think Moon has been too accommodating to the unreasonable US demands. I think Moon should have just put down his food and he should have said, if the US feel South Korea’s cost portion to the USFK is not enough, then we need to cut the US troop numbers, to bring down the runaway soaring costs to meet the current payments. And I bet you most South Koreans whether they are pro-US or not, will probably agree with that sentiment.
typing correction: “put down his foot”
Beijing boy still wants to present us with reams of flummery. History is not irrelevant because it’s inconvenient. Or because it interferes with Xi’s narrative.. And getting outraged over a blog he so obviously despises is evidence Bb’s paid to disrupt.
Only he’s not earning his pay. We like clowns. We just wish he’d tell jokes instead of hectoring. That style of humor went out before Seinfeld ended.
I miss the better quality of trolls we used to have.
setnaffa, didn’t you say you’re fat, old, and has cancer? Have you had a COVID test done lately?
See, you still don’t quite get it, do you? You have incredibly defective attention to detail. You miss important clues while trying to express outrage over your fantasies about others. With luck, you’ll grow out of it. If your masters don’t decide to have you volunteer to donate all your organs.
I’d bet the regulars know how long ago my cancer was cured.
And no, I don’t have the Sino Sinus Syphillus, or any “comorbidity” that would turn it to the Wuhan Death Pox. Nor do any of the people close to me. Several of us think maybe it ran through our office back in late January and early February; but that may have just been above-normal colds and flu.
The current form of testing for people with no symptoms is just a waste of time and scarce resources. It’s fear pr0n. Are you hooked on that too? Or just old rich guys?
I did have a bad cold the next to the last time I was in Korea, tho’. December 2010 was about -14 degrees Fahrenheit–and I was dressed for a Texas winter…
You need to do better research. Start here:
www dot youtube dot com/watch?v=PDjS20kic54
So in other words, the US is using the non-threatening Wuhan virus to bash on China without any reason right? It’s just a bad flu. Why don’t you prove it? Get infected and let’s see if you foam at your mouth or not. Will take up my challenge, old man?
You are one sad, sad little boy.
I recommend you seek professional counseling.
They still have psychologists in China, don’t they?
www dot oann dot com/nicklaus-says-he-was-ill-with-covid-19-earlier-this-year/
legalinsurrection dot com/2020/07/connecticut-pathologists-study-shows-cdc-coronavirus-test-kits-generate-30-false-positive-results/
www dot upi dot com/Health_News/2020/07/16/CDC-Most-COVID-19-cases-in-New-York-City-in-March-traced-to-Europe/2021594912724/
It looks like the person who needs professional counseling is you. And why are you posting links on poor quality American made test kits that don’t work? This only furthers the point that the American handling of the crisis is horrendously bad. Maybe that’s why there are 150,000 dead so far since March?
I am actually thinking we are on like Beijing Man 3.0. A few long breaks between posting i am theorizing the previoys guy got fired, promoted, or died of CCP virus and the break time was to train the new guy.
This version of Emperor Xi’s boy loves to drone on pedantically.
Having a personal Chinese or North Korean agent trying to guide opinion greatly honors ROK Drop and its commenters.
Further, some years ago, our assigned agent found it difficult to write in English. Our current agent writes English quite well.
This is a step up!
But, of course, authoritarian regimes think brute force reeducation is the only way to win hearts and minds so our assigned agent is hostile rather than convincing.
Authoritarian commies simply can’t grasp the culture of salesmanship over force.
That goes for domestic ones as well.
But maybe I am wrong.
Let’s see if the authoritarian commies and their violent proxies win any elections in November.
CH, I think if the current BLM/Antifa Games continue, Trump may win 50 states…
Flyingsword, your thinking may be correct. There are a lot of inconsistencies that could be more easily explained that way…