Following the announcement that the US intends to scrap large joint
military exercises with South Korea, President Trump has been extolling
the virtues of the move, claiming they will be saving the US “hundreds of millions of dollars” annually.
President Trump also said on Twitter that cutting the drills would mean “reducing tensions with North Korea,”
adding that this is a good thing at the moment. The spring drills
between the US and South Korea have historically fueled a lot of
tensions with North Korea.
The risk of large war-games blowing up diplomatic progress has been the
chief reason such drills are dialed back. South Korea has favored such
moves, and has sought to replace the drills with smaller, less
provocative ones.
The financial savings are somewhat disputed, however. Though the cost of
the exercises to be shelved are indeed in the hundreds of millions of
dollars, between keeping all those troops in South Korea, and adding
more smaller exercises, some estimates are that the savings will be
smaller.
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