Category: US-ROK Alliance

General Bell is speaking out against the OPCON transfer to South Korea:

A former commander of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) on Friday expressed his opposition to the planned transfer of wartime operational control, or Opcon, from the United States to South Korea, citing significant threat stemming from North Korea’s nuclear weapons development.

Gen. Burwell B. Bell, a U.S. four-star general who commanded the USFK from 2006 to 2008, said in a written interview with a Korean correspondents club in the United States earlier this month that he opposed the wartime Opcon transfer based on recent assessments that Pyongyang has made great strides in its nuclear weapons program that has made a conventional weapons-based deterrence model obsolete.  

Only the United States, he said, possessed the nuclear weapons and deployment capability to respond to the North Korean nuclear arsenal, and this capability can only be effectively planned and exercised in a wartime contingency if the U.S. command stands at the helm of the alliance. In terms of combat operations on the Korean Peninsula, the wartime Opcon transfer was unlikely to be realized, he added. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but from a military perspective General Bell is correct. Does anyone think that in a real contingency on the Korean peninsula a ROK general is going to be directing U.S. stealth bombers, space assets, nuclear weapons, and other strategic capabilities that only the U.S. has?

However, the OPCON transfer is not a military issue for the ROK, it is a political issue. All the issues that General Bell brings up, the ROK left could care less about. They don’t think North Korea would ever attack the ROK and that the U.S. military is actually a barrier to reunification. The OPCON transfer is one of the things they need to move towards the removal of U.S. troops from South Korea and seeking their confederation with North Korea.

I don’t think the argument is whether South Korea is free riding but rather if their current cost sharing amount is adequate:

Former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Mark Lippert on Friday rejected the notion that South Korea is free-riding on the United States’ troop presence in the country, saying the two nations are “very, very strong allies.”

Lippert, who served as the last U.S. ambassador to Seoul under former President Barack Obama, made the remark as negotiations on renewing a burden-sharing deal between South Korea and the U.S. got under way this week. (…………….)

n supporting his case, the former ambassador listed three factors: mandatory military service for all able-bodied South Korean men, South Korea’s shouldering of more than 90 percent of the cost of expanding Camp Humphreys, the U.S.’ largest overseas military base, and Seoul’s increase of defense spending by 4-8 percent each year.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It is pretty clear that domestic political concerns are more important for the Moon administration than security concerns:

U.S. President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe noted the importance of trilateral security cooperation with South Korea during their talks in New York Wednesday, the White House said. On the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, Trump and Abe discussed issues of mutual interest and signed a preliminary bilateral trade agreement. The White House did not elaborate on the discussions on South Korea, but the two leaders are likely to have touched on Seoul’s decision to pull out of a military intelligence-sharing pact with Tokyo.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It appears that the ROK strategy for not paying more for USFK cost sharing is to imply that they may reduce their purchase of U.S. weapons if they pay more:

President Moon Jae-in outlined to U.S. President Donald Trump Korea’s plans to purchase many American weapons over the next three years as they held a summit in New York on Monday.

A Blue House official told reporters that Moon during the talks briefed Trump on Seoul’s weapons purchases over the past decade and “also plans for our purchases for the next three years.”

Moon is expected to have explained to Trump Seoul’s purchase of American weapons systems between 2009 and 2018. This is likely to have included the acquisition of 40 F-35A Lockheed Martin stealth fighters and three American-made Aegis combat systems, worth some $6.279 billion, according to data by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri).

During the 10-year time frame, Korea ranked as the fourth-largest U.S. weapons importer, following Saudi Arabia, Australia and the United Arab Emirates, according to Sipri data.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

I think President Trump has a far different definition of what “reasonable” means than President Moon:

NEW YORK, Sept. 23 (Yonhap) — South Korean President Moon Jae-in told U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday that his government is open to sharing the cost of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) on a “reasonable and fair” level, a Cheong Wa Dae official said after their summit here.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but it will be interesting to see if President Moon tries to raise anti-US sentiment like he has done with Japan if he can’t get Trump to back down on significantly increasing the ROK’s cost sharing amount each year.

The Moon administration is sending their Foreign Minister to try and lobby the USFK commander on the USFK cost sharing issue:

Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha will meet with United States Forces Korea (USFK) commander Robert Abrams, Friday, at the new USFK headquarters in Camp Humphreys, to discuss pending security affairs here.

Kang’s visit to Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, located about 70 kilometers south of Seoul, is the first since 2017. The visit to the U.S. military base comes at a crucial time when the allies are on the verge of starting their defense cost-sharing negotiations, known as the Special Measures Agreement (SMA).

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

I don’t think a technocrat is going to change President Trump’s mind that the ROK needs to pay much more for the upkeep of the US-ROK alliance, but I guess we will see what happens:

The government is considering naming a non-diplomat official, such as a financial technocrat, to head negotiations with the U.S. on sharing the cost for the upkeep of American troops, sources said Friday.

That would mark a departure from the tradition that officials from either the foreign or defense ministries have led the Special Measures Agreement (SMA) aimed at determining how much South Korea should shoulder the cost of U.S. troop presence in the country.

The two sides expected to launch the negotiations around mid-September amid widespread indications that the United States could ask for a massive raise in Seoul’s share of the cost of the stationing of the 28,500-strong U.S. Forces Korea (USFK).

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The long debated issue of where to officially put the Combined Forces Command has apparently been settled:

Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command (CFC) will be relocated from the Yongsan Garrison in Seoul to Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek by 2021, defense officials announced Sunday.

The CFC, Korea’s Ministry of National Defense and Joint Chiefs of Staff made the announcement jointly on Sunday, adding that a timeline will be finalized in the U.S.-Korea Security Consultative Meeting coming at the end of October or early November.

The move had been forewarned by Washington and Seoul in June, but Sunday was the first time an exact time for the move was announced. 

The move of the CFC will be in time for the expected transfer of wartime operational control (Opcon) over Korea’s military forces from the United States to Korea by 2022.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but the ROK was trying to keep the CFC in Seoul and force the Americans to commute every week for meetings. USFK wanted the CFC based out of Camp Humphreys which is what they ended up getting.

According to the article the hand over of operational control is still planned for 2022. 2022 just happens to be of the ROK presidential election so you know that who ever President Moon selects to run for President will take credit for the hand over.

Here is the latest on the return of closed out U.S. military bases in South Korea:

Cheong Wa Dae said Friday it will redouble efforts for the early return of more than two dozen U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) bases.

It was briefing media on the results of a weekly meeting of the National Security Council’s (NSC) standing committee.

The USFK has been moving its bases nationwide mainly to a refurbished garrison in Pyeongtaek, some 70 kilometers south of Seoul. It’s named Camp Humphreys.

The process of South Korea regaining the sites of the affected bases has been going slowly, however, partly due to handling of polluted soil.

In the session, presided over by Chung Eui-yong, director of Cheong Wa Dae’s national security office, the NSC panel members agreed to “push actively for an early return” of the sites of 26 USFK bases, which will be vacant or have already been, according to Cheong Wa Dae.

“In particular, (they) agreed to begin the return process on the Yongsan base (in central Seoul) within this year,” it said.

Top security officials, including the defense minister, especially decided to seek the return of four bases at the earliest possible date, it added.

They are Camp Long and Camp Eagle in Wonju, Gangwon Province, as well as Camp Market in Incheon and Camp Hovey in Dongducheon, Gyeonggi Province.

Those who reside in nearby areas have suffered economic troubles because of a long delay in the return of the bases, the NSC officials noted.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.