I guess someone must have realized how lame renaming Key Resolve to the “19-1 Exercise” was and have instead now named it the “Dong Maeng” exercise:
South Korea and the United States will launch the new Dong Maeng combined exercise this week to replace their springtime Key Resolve drills, their militaries announced Sunday. Seoul’s Joint chiefs of Staff (JCS) and the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command (CFC) said that the nine-day command post exercise kicks off on Monday, two days after the allies’ defense chiefs decided to end the annual Key Resolve and Foal Eagle maneuvers to back diplomacy for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. “Dong Maeng, which means alliance in English, has been modified from the previously held spring exercises Key Resolve and Foal Eagle and will focus on strategic, operational and tactical aspects of general military operations on the Korean Peninsula,” they said in a joint press release. Seoul’s JCS Chairman Gen. Park Han-ki and CFC Commander Gen. Robert Abrams jointly said that the upcoming exercise is important for professional armies to train and maintain “a standard of readiness.” “These exercises are crucial in sustaining and strengthening the alliance,” they were quoted as saying. With the Key Resolve effectively supplanted by the new exercise, the allies are expected to conduct low-key battalion-or lower-level drills in place of the Foal Eagle field training throughout the year.
I wonder if President Trump is given briefing notes to review before he talks because this is a big difference in numbers he misstated:
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House, Tuesday (local time.) / AP
U.S. President Donald Trump said South Korea’s payment for the U.S. troop presence will increase further only days after both sides signed a one-year deal for the defense cost sharing.
“Working with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton, they (South Korea) agreed to pay, yesterday, $500 million (560 billion) more toward their defense,” Trump said in a Cabinet meeting, Tuesday (local time).
On Sunday, Seoul and Washington signed the one-year provisional deal on defense cost sharing, called the Special Measures Agreement (SMA) for the upkeep of United States Forces Korea (USFK).
Under the 2019 SMA, the South will pay 1.04 trillion won toward the upkeep of stationing 28,500 U.S. troops here, up 8.2 percent from the previous year. This is an increase of 78.7 billion won, compared with last year, not the amount stated by Trump.
It remains unclear why the U.S. president made the remark with such an obviously factual error. But it is highly likely that he overstated the amount to score a political point there and raise his approval rating.
S. Korea, U.S. sign defense cost dealChang Won-sam (R), the chief South Korean negotiator for defense cost talks, and his U.S. counterpart Timothy Betts sign a provisional defense cost-sharing deal on Feb. 10, 2019, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Seoul. (Yonhap)
It looks like the next US-ROK military exercise will be delayed:
China’s state-run Xinhua news agency says the decision by South Korea and the U.S. to delay their announcement on joint military drill plans to after the North Korea-U.S. summit is in consideration of Pyongyang.
The report said Saturday the postponement appears to have considered North Korea’s possible reaction to the joint drills ahead of its summit with Washington.
It noted the regime has criticized South Korea-U.S. exercises as rehearsals for invading the North.
Xinhua said the decision to delay the announcement likely reflects the belief that ongoing working-level negotiations between the North and the U.S. may be affected.
The report added that at the time of the first North Korea-U.S. summit last year, Seoul and Washington also pushed back their joint drills to after the summit meeting.
This poll shows why the Moon administration feels it can play hardball with the US in regards to increasing the funding for USFK, it is a popular opinion to do so:
In a poll fielded in South Korea in late January by RealMeter, a majority of South Koreans (59%) oppose accommodating US demands on increased burden sharing support (26% are in favor). It is especially notable that there are virtually no significant divides across demographic groups. Pluralities—and majorities in most cases—of all ages, regions, ideological leanings, and party affiliations are in opposition to Seoul giving in to US demands. The lone outlier are supporters of Liberty Party Korea, the main conservative opposition party. Even there, 45 percent support giving in to US demands versus 39 percent who oppose.
You can read more at the link, but even threatening to withdraw US troops does little to impact the numbers. This leads me to believe that Koreans do not believe that President Trump would actually pull out troops.
I would be interested to see what the poll numbers would be if Koreans were asked what is more important, paying more to Kim Jong-un or the US-ROK alliance?
"The Moon administration…denying the legitimacy of its own nation & bringing down liberal democracy under the cloak of “inter-Korean collaboration” initiated by the unreliable Pyongyang regime." "We should spend money…for the ROK-U.S. alliance rather than for the NK regime" https://t.co/1lZoV6bGsA
#GenDunford spoke with his #ROK counterpart by phone yesterday to thank him for his support over the past year and reaffirm his commitment to the 🇺🇸-🇰🇷alliance, a lynchpin of stability and security in the #IndoPacific.
It appears that the Trump administration is settling for the lowest sum they are willing to take which is $1 billion for the upkeep of the US-ROK alliance:
The United States has demanded South Korea pay $1 billion (1.12 trillion won) in annual defense costs sharing, as its final proposal to months of negotiations on the issue, according to officials, Wednesday.
South Korea flatly rejected the demand, maintaining its position that it cannot pay more than 1 trillion won.
“U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Harry Harris met with South Korea’s National Security Adviser Chung Eui-yong last month to deliver the final proposal,” a government official said, asking for anonymity.
On top of that, Washington also urged Seoul to renew the cost-sharing contract each year from the current five year, according to the official.
You can read more at the link, but I have been saying that I don’t think this issue will be resolved until after the Trump-Kim2 summit. If Seoul gets what they want from the US during the summit then they may be more flexible on paying more for the upkeep of the US-ROK alliance.
I have maintained that the USFK cost sharing talks will likely only be resolved as part of a North Korea denuclearization deal. If President Trump signs a peace treaty to end the Korean War and drops sanctions on North Korea, the Moon administration will likely give him what he wants on the cost sharing deal:
As Seoul and Washington are currently deadlocked in negotiations to renew their bilateral defense cost-sharing agreement, the next level of talks will likely happen at a higher level.
“An 11th round of [the current] talks likely won’t be scheduled,” a high-level Korean government official told reporters Thursday. “Instead, it may be negotiated at a higher level.”
On the possibility of the deal on sharing the cost of stationing of U.S. troops in Korea then being negotiated between Korean President Moon Jae-in and U.S. President Donald Trump, the official said, “all possibilities are open.”
Since last March, Seoul and Washington have been negotiating the renewal of the bilateral Special Measures Agreement (SMA), a multiyear cost-sharing deal under the Status of Forces Agreement, or SOFA, to maintain the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK).
Chang Won-sam has led the Korean delegation for the 10th SMA, while the U.S. delegation has been led by Timothy Betts, acting deputy assistant secretary for plans, programs and operations at the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs.
The tenth round of talks took place mid-December, but the two sides failed to narrow their differences before the current deal expired on Dec. 31. As the two sides have been unable to resolve their differences, diplomatic sources have indicated that the issue now needs to be solved by the two leaders.
The government official, however, said that “various channels of negotiations for the cost-sharing deal are being considered,” including between ambassadors, the Blue House National Security Office and White House National Security Council, as well as between South Korea’s foreign minister and U.S. secretary of state.
