Tweet of the Day: General Paik Sun-yup Turns 100 Years Old
GIKorea | November 23, 2019
Robert Abrams
✔
@DogFaceSoldier
Honored to join 8A Cdr @MichaelABills1 in wishing a Korean National hero Gen Paik Sun-yup happy 100th birthday. 100! Mind still as sharp ever recalling stories from the war and shifting to today’s news without pause. Katchi Kapsida Gen Paik! We go together!
https://www.rokdrop.net/2019/11/tweet-of-the-day-general-paik-sun-yup-turns-100-years-old/
USFK - US Forces Korea
South Korean Ruling Party Suggests Charging USFK to Use Korean Ports & Railways
GIKorea | November 23, 2019 | US-ROK Alliance |
This appears to be a way that the Korean government may try and hit back at U.S. negotiators trying to work out a new USFK cost sharing agreement:
Rep. Cho Jeong-sik, chief policymaker of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, center, speaks during a party meeting at the National Assembly, Thursday. Yonhap
Members of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) Thursday floated the idea of including South Korea’s indirect financial contributions for the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) as “leverage†if Washington keeps asking Seoul to pay “excessive†costs.
“If Washington keeps making absurd demands, South Korea will seriously reconsider the adjustment of indirect costs created by the USFK apart from defense cost-sharing,†Rep. Cho Jeong-sik, chief policymaker of the DPK, said during a party meeting, Thursday.
Read more at: https://www.rokdrop.net/2019/11/south-korean-ruling-party-suggests-charging-usfk-to-use-korean-ports-railways/
I wonder if this was ever an issue under Carter though Obama??? Hey, there might be some valid points about requesting some cost increases but it should be done with great sensitivity.
Next, co-writer Richard Armitage, so Deputy Secretary of State under Bush(?). Anyway, this next opinion piece certainly doesn't have a happy tone. Chairman of CSIS, I've read them before.
Opinion | The 66-year alliance between the U.S. and South Korea is in deep trouble
By Richard Armitage and Victor Cha
Richard Armitage, a former deputy secretary of state, 2001-2005, is the president of the business consultancy Armitage International. Victor Cha, a former member of the National Security Council, 2004-2007, is a professor at Georgetown University and senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The 66-year alliance between the United States and the Republic of Korea is in deep trouble. The U.S.-China trade war, the South Korean government’s quiet leaning toward Beijing and President Trump’s transactional view of alliances have created a unique constellation of forces. The result could be a premature withdrawal of U.S. troops from the peninsula at a time when North Korea’s nuclear threat and China’s regional dominance grow unabated.
The 11th-hour decision by South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s administration on Friday to postpone its planned termination of an intelligence-sharing agreement among the United States, Japan and South Korea was wise, but damage to the reservoir of trust in the relationship had already been done. Seoul’s apparent leveraging of the valued agreement to compel Washington’s involvement in economic and historical disputes between South Korea and Japan — the United States’ two major democratic allies in the Pacific — was an act of alliance abuse.
The threat to end the intelligence cooperation not only degrades the ability of the three to respond to North Korean nuclear or missile tests but also represents a potential decoupling of South Korea’s security interests from those of Japan and the United States, in a significant sign of alliance erosion. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe regards North Korea’s nuclear weapons as an existential threat, but Moon — whose party will face challenging national elections in the spring — prefers to play down the threat. He focuses instead on inter-Korean economic engagement projects to boost the flagging South Korean economy.
Read more at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-66-year-alliance-between-the-us-and-south-korea-is-in-deep-trouble/2019/11/22/63f593fc-0d63-11ea-bd9d-c628fd48b3a0_story.html
That would be a debacle, again, maybe we've been taken advantage of in the past. Let's be careful about all of this.
Some of these foreign policy issues, China, Turkey, are starting to grate on my nerves.
