One day after the South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo reported that President Trump is considering withdrawing 4,000 US troops from South Korea, the Pentagon has made a point to deny that there was even a consideration of that possibility.
Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman says Defense Secretary Mark Esper had assured South Korea the military commitment was “ironclad.” Hoffman said the story to the contrary was “dangerous and irresponsible,” and demanded Chosun Ilbo retract it.
That’s probably not going to happen, as Chosun Ilbo quoted a source in the US diplomatic corps, and US special envoy Stephen Biegun appeared to confirm the story, saying South Korea mustn’t “get a free ride.”
That the Pentagon isn’t directly considering troop drawdowns, moreover, doesn’t mean they aren’t under consideration at other levels. With US officials trying to convince South Korea to pay $4.7 billion annually for the troops, there is clearly interest on some levels to present the risk that the US might leave.
Esper’s position that the US commitment is ironclad seemed to be informing a lot of South Koreans on the negotiations, suggesting that they have time to negotiate and don’t have to give in to US demands.
WTH? If they don’t want to pay the revised bill the troops get pulled right? Otherwise bluff has been called pie in POTUS’s face.
I wish.
US airbases in S. Korea are the closest land-based fields near the Eastern borders of Russia. Trump will not evacuate them.
The US has airfields in Alaska, for which they don’t have to rely on a host country, from which they don’t have to fly over North Korean- and/or Chinese- and/or Russian-controlled airspace for most of the trip into Russia proper’s airspace, and which can be resupplied entirely by land.
Yep all ironclad. Just like Richard Holbrooke (Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs) under Carter, when he continually assured Taiwan that the US stands by our commitments and then Taiwan learned that all military forces to be withdrawn, diplomatic recognition withdrawn, and the Taiwan-US Mutual Defense Treaty to be abrogated.