Facing diplomatic fallout from a previous aerial exercise near North Korea, the Trump Administration was all set to do it again this past week, planning a three-nation exercise with US B-52 bombers escorted by South Korean and Japanese planes.
Apparently the Pentagon wasn’t able to put 2 and 2 together on this, and it took intervention from South Korea, who pointed out this was a really bad time for such an exercise, to convince President Trump to cancel it.
The Trump-Kim summit is in just three weeks, and North Korea was already questioning whether the US was in the right frame of mind to talk after the last war games. South Korea said the exercise would generate too much tension ahead of the talks.
US officials say they accepted South Korea’s call because they want to keep up a cooperative relationship with South Korea during the diplomatic process. They added that the B-52 bombers had a routine training mission near Okinawa in recent days instead.
South Korea is working to try to prepare the US to participate in a summit with Kim, after their own summit went quite well. Their interest in seeing this new summit go well is nothing surprising.
What is surprising is that, having hyped up the summit themselves, the Trump Administration has such little self-awareness about the sort of behavior that could threaten it happening. South Korea appears to have to keep an eye on the US and make sure to keep them from doing anything foolish before June 12.
DO NOT TRUST THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT FOR ANY REASON!
This should be a government mandated warning label that appears on all government “products”.
I wonder if the South Koreans tried to stop the last one, but were just over-ridden? I have not seen reports either way.
Duh,……
“….South Korea appears to have to keep an eye on the US and make sure to keep them from doing anything foolish before June 12….”
that’s a pretty big order, especially since the idiotic US doesn’t even have an ambassador to south korea yet. as unbelievable as it sounds
There has to be at least one US military brass in S. Korea who understands that but will he/she be able to effectively communicate that concern to the WH?
Wow. A moment of sanity. Almost hard to believe.
by South Korea
Excellent decision.
Excellent decision indeed, Rick, SK Pres. Moon Jae-in did right to cancel combined US and SK military exercises, and POTUS Trump had no choice but to bow to Moon’s decision.
I’m both relieved and happy that these decisions were made, because, the summit meeting between Trump and NK leader Kim Jong-un, due next month, has been steadily heading for disaster. Perhaps now, the summit between them can go on smoothly, and the negotiations on reunification of the two countries, by both Moon and Kim, can go smoothly as well.
The good news was “that the B-52’s had a routine training mission near Okinawa in recent days instead”. Hey, not to worry, when you got bases splattered all over the world there is always some place those B-52’s can get their practice runs in.
“They added that the B-52 bombers had a routine training mission near Okinawa in recent days instead.” Just to please the people of Okinawa, who have been thrilled for decades by the destruction of their land and lives by US constant military presence.
Moon seems to be the Trump whisperer. Maybe Rouhani should give him a call.
Won’t work for Rouhani with Bibi whispering in Trump’s other ear. Moon is just lucky he doesn’t have Israel’s wishes to contend with.
A serious blow to the prostitution and alcohol industries in S. Korea for sure. Just imagine how hard they will be hit if all the troops finally leave (not a reason for them to stay…not what I am saying).