U.S.-ROK Relations An Ironclad Alliance or a Transactional House of Cards?

[soryang]

Brief for Congressional Outreach

U.S.-ROK Relations
An Ironclad Alliance or a Transactional House of Cards?
by David Maxwell
November 15, 2019

...According to reports, in addition to demanding $5 billion in funding for U.S. forces, the United States has increased the categories of support from three to six.[10] There has been no publicly released information on how these new demands were determined. Although not confirmed, the new categories appear to be operational support, training and readiness, and troop salaries, which have never been funded by host nations.

“Operational support” is assumed to mean funding for the deployment of U.S. strategic assets to South Korea. An example is the deployment of B-52 or B-1 bombers to support deterrence messaging, but this category may also include port calls for U.S. naval ships operating in the Korean theater. How operational support is defined is critical. Recent press reports of the deployment of the RC-135 Cobra Ball to Japan for surveillance of North Korean targets raise the question of whether the United States might ask the ROK government to fund such deployments.

Furthermore, if the ROK government balks at funding operational support or says no to funding specific operations, this will affect U.S. military operations and capabilities that may be critical for deterrence or early warning of North Korean plans. Conversely, if the ROK determines a need for U.S. assets, will South Korea still be able to request them as long as it pays for the deployment? A new alliance paradigm will be established, and new processes and procedures will have to be developed...

https://www.nbr.org/publication/u-s-rok-relations-an-ironclad-alliance-or-a-transactional-house-of-cards/

This is a great briefing by the retired Army Colonel David Maxwell on the current SMA negotiating fiasco going on right now between the US and South Korea. The excerpt above only gives a small indication of the radical changes implicated by the Trump administration's unreasonable and unprecedented 5 billion dollar demand on South Korea, a state which spends more on national defense per capita than other US allies. The US SMA negotiating team's overreach is explicitly intended to have consequences for all US alliances as Trump made clear recently in a visit to Europe. The House Armed Services Committee should be having hearings right now to consider the harmful course the Trump administration is taking in South Korea and its implications for our alliances world wide as soon as possible.