Category: Korean War

This bad idea keeps coming up:

President Moon Jae-in’s speech early Wednesday morning at the 75th United Nations General Assembly contained some proposals on engaging North Korea. 

Political watchers, however, generally view the proposals, including declaring an end to the 1950-53 Korean War, as unrealistic in the current deadlock in inter-Korean and denuclearization talks.

Moon called for the support of the international community in declaring an official end to the war, which was halted by an armistice, not a peace treaty. He also proposed the establishment of a new network of countries in Northeast Asia, including the two Koreas, China, Japan and Mongolia, to promote cooperation in infectious disease control and the promotion of public health.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link but a Korean War peace treaty is something that North Korea has long sought as a way to end the presence of US troops in South Korea. If there is peace why is USFK needed?

President Moon has been saying all the right things that USFK will remain after any peace treaty is signed, to include claiming Kim Jong-un understands this as well. However, this is likely just rhetoric to prevent energizing South Korean conservatives against a peace treaty. 

Remember 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.  

That is why I think the Moon administration will publicly say they support USFK staying, but will then have surrogates do things to make life difficult for USFK if a peace treaty is agreed to. Every USFK traffic accident, parking ticket, drunken fight, etc. will become a national headline complete with anti-US activists protesting to increase anti-US sentiment.  It will be the 2002-2004 timeframe all over again and this time the Korean left will hope that the US president decides to pull out USFK on his own accord.

Heck even our friends in Canada understand this.

By the way you can read about the PEFTOK battalion during the Korean War at this previous ROK Drop posting.

This is a great idea by the Korea Military Academy:

The Army unveiled a monument Friday to commemorate U.S. Military Academy graduates who were killed in the 1950-53 Korean War, officials said.

The monument, erected at the Korea Military Academy in Seoul, bears the names of 17 fallen officers from the West Point Class of 1948, Army officials said.

That is in addition to two monuments already set up at the Korea Military Academy campus to honor U.S. service members from the Classes of 1949 and 1950 killed in the war, officials said.

The Army plans to build four more for those from the Classes of 1945, 1946, 1947 and 1951 by 2023, and turn the area into a zone to remember the fallen U.S. soldiers.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This week is the 70th anniversary of the Incheon Landing Operation that turned the tide of the Korean War. I guess we will see if President Moon attends any ceremonies honoring the operation that changed the course of the Korean War.  

You can read more about the Incheon Landing Operation at my prior posting at the below link:

For anyone visiting Incheon the memorial hall there dedicated to the landing is well worth checking out as well: