With the drop in coronavirus cases across Korea, USFK is easing the restrictions placed on servicemembers and their families:
U.S. Forces Korea will lower its health protection level nationwide starting Monday, allowing personnel to visit Seoul for the first time in months thanks to a decline in coronavirus cases.
The military already had eased most restrictions on service members in May but kept the South Korean capital out of bounds except for people stationed in the metropolis due to fears of cluster infections.
Bars, clubs and other establishments with adults-only entrance remain off-limits in all areas, the command said Friday in an announcement on social media.
This poll shows how small the number of Koreans with anti-U.S. views are in the ROK:
Most South Koreans expressed support for the South Korea-U.S. alliance despite ongoing tensions over burden-sharing, a new poll found Monday.
According to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, 90 percent of respondents said they either strongly support or somewhat support the alliance, similar to the 92 percent in December.
The survey, conducted on 1,000 adults in South Korea from June 23-25, also found that a unilateral withdrawal of American troops from South Korea is likely to undermine public support for the alliance.
That’s because the U.S. commitment to defend South Korea is closely linked to views of the alliance as mutually beneficial.
Eighty-two percent of the respondents said they are very confident or somewhat confident in the U.S. commitment to defend South Korea. Of those who are very confident, 78 percent said the alliance is mutually beneficial.
You can read more at the link, but unfortunately the anti-U.S. leftists in Korea have a big megaphone which can make it seem they are larger than what they really are.
Here is the latest on the development of the Yongsan Park:
The idea of creating Yongsan Park became official in 2005 after the Roh Moo-hyun administration and the U.S. agreed to relocate troops there to Pyeongtaek.
In 2007, the National Assembly passed a special act on the creation of the park and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport began allocating resources for it.
No one expected the relocation would take so long.
One reason for the delay was that government had to find money to finance the Yongsan Relocation Plan ― which it was supposed to pay for. Occasional provocations from North Korea were also a factor that influenced the project.
Now, the former U.S. site is more than 90 percent empty.
The land ministry projects the park will be opened in 2027, but many, including the Ministry of National Defense responsible for the site return negotiations, are cautious, only saying it will largely depend on the talks which are expected to hit a stumbling block over the issue of soil contamination.
The land ministry has got many things done so far.
In 2012, it selected a team of architects and urban planners to design the park ― the final version of the plan was made public last week and can be found at park.go.kr.
The ministry is also carrying out aggressive public awareness campaigns about the park.
In 2018, the ministry began offering tours of the garrison, inviting a limited number of residents to see the historic buildings and sites.
On Aug. 1, the ministry is opening up the 50,000 square meters of land that used to be a residential compound for U.S. military officers and their families. The land was returned to Korea in 1986 but instead of opening up to the public immediately, the government built new houses and rented them to USFK personnel until the end of last year.
You can read more at the link, but how many people think all of Yongsan Garrison will be turned into a park? I also wonder if the historic Imperial Japanese era buildings will be torn down as well.
An F-16 Fighting Falcon is taken back to the flight line after a full paint job in 2014 at Kunsan Air Base, South Korea.
An airman found dead this week at Kunsan Air Base served as a section chief for the 8th Maintenance Squadron, the 8th Fighter Wing announced Wednesday.
Tech Sgt. Joshua Arndt, 35, was found unresponsive in his dorm room just before 9 a.m. Monday and pronounced dead 20 minutes later, according to statements issued by the wing. His death is under investigation.
“We are deeply saddened by the loss of Tech. Sgt. Arndt,” said Col. Christopher Hammond, commander of 8th Fighter Wing, according to the wing. “On behalf of the Wolf Pack, I offer our sincerest condolences to his family, friends and fellow Airmen.”
Arndt was one of nearly 4,600 airmen selected this month for advancement to the rank of master sergeant.
Ex-U.S. officers’ billet made public Seen here is a model featuring the U.S. Forces Korea’s former officers’ billet at Yongsan Garrison in Seoul on July 21, 2020, one day ahead of its opening to the public. Korea Land and Housing Corp. built the quarters in 1989 and rented it to U.S. officers until the end of 2019. The area will be developed into a park. (Yonhap)
The trickle of positive coronavirus cases from USFK personnel arriving in South Korea continues:
Coroanvirus specimen bags are prepared for Patriot Express passengers arriving at Osan Air Base, South Korea, July 14, 2020.
The number of coronavirus cases affiliated with U.S. Forces Korea soared to 111, with 12 more troops and a dependent testing positive after traveling from the United States to South Korea over the past two weeks, the military said Wednesday.
The increase reflected a surge in infections in the United States. USFK has insisted the arrivals pose no risk to local communities because they are tightly controlled with a strict testing and two-week quarantine process.
Ten service members and the dependent who tested positive arrived at Incheon International Airport on commercial flights on July 8, 9 and 19, according to a press release.
The idea of using USFK to respond to global missions has officially returned:
The U.S. push for greater “strategic flexibility” for its forces deployed around the world could increase the chances of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) being mobilized for missions beyond the Korean Peninsula, experts said Wednesday.
U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Tuesday that he wants to pursue more rotational force deployments into theaters as it give the U.S. “greater strategic flexibility in terms of responding to challenges around the globe.”
The remarks came in response to a recent media report that the Pentagon has offered the White House options to reduce American troop levels in South Korea. Esper, however, said he has not issued an order to withdraw forces from the Korean Peninsula.
What we could see happening is that a future rotational brigade that was originally scheduled to deploy to Korea instead deploys somewhere else. This would allow the U.S. to reduce troops in South Korea in a face saving way.
This shouldn’t be surprising news to anyone following the US-ROK cost sharing negotiations:
This file photo shows U.S. base Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul. (Yonhap)
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.
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.
It doesn’t take an expert to know that the cancellation of the US-ROK military exercise will not motivate North Korea to want to discuss denuclearization when they have no intention to denuclearize:
U.S. Forces Korea Commander Gen. Robert Abrams, second from right, inspects an artillery drill at Rodriguez Live Fire Complex in Paju, Gyeonggi Province in this Oct. 23, 2019 photo. / Korea Times file
Amid growing speculation that joint military exercises between South Korea and the United States are likely to be called off in a bid to prevent the spread of COVID-19, and appease North Korea, diplomatic experts believe a cancellation as an olive branch to Pyongyang is not a good idea, saying there will be no “reciprocity” from the isolated country.
Currently, the government is in a quandary over whether to cancel the annual drills as the COVID-19 pandemic shows no sign of abating. The exercises will bring hundreds of American troops here, raising concerns over possible new infections.
In addition, further deepening Seoul’s calculations is the possibility of military retaliation from the Kim Jong-un regime, as the totalitarian state describes the exercises as hostile action by the U.S. against the North.
The government also wants the exercises to be focused on assessing the Korean military’s relevant capabilities on its way to regaining wartime operational control (OPCON) from the U.S. by 2022. Either a delay or a cancellation of the drills could disrupt the timetable for that.
“If the military exercises are canceled or postponed, it is possible North Korea will relent and agree to an eventual working level meeting, in response to recent U.S.-South Korea requests to resume negotiations. I doubt, however, that the cancellation or postponement of the exercises will motivate the North to resume working-level negotiations, given that it has refused to meet with the U.S. or ROK since late 2019,” Joseph DeTrani, a former U.S. special envoy to the six-party talks, told The Korea Times, referring to South Korea by its formal name, the Republic of Korea.
