Will the US Really Withdraw Troops from South Korea?

(Source- Shin In Kyun Defense Daily 01.08.19) Crisis in the US-ROK alliance. Getting Ready to toss out South Korea?

In response to the stalemated negotiations between South Korea and the US about defense cost sharing, the political right in South Korea is now raising the prospect of the US withdrawing the only armored brigade USFK has from Korea in July at the time of its scheduled rotation. The armored brigade, according to former South Korean General Shin Won Shik, is the core of ground combat force in the US Forces Korea:

Moreover, if the President makes a decision, 6,000 of the 28,000 US troops currently in Korea can be reduced immediately. Most US forces in Korea consist of combat support units such as command and administration, aircraft and artillery, and the combat unit is only one armored brigade of the 2nd division. If the next unit of the armored brigade scheduled to be replaced in July of this year does not arrive during its scheduled rotation, the absence of the one ground combat unit, the so-called "trip wire" of the US battle command, becomes an unheard of situation in the USFK.

http://www.chogabje.com/board/column/view.asp?C_IDX=81281&C_CC=BC (original source TongA Ilbo, 01.07) 올 여름부터 駐韓미군 철수 ‘현실’이 될 수 있다 신원식

This and other characterizations by Shin are somewhat hyperbolic.

While General Shin and others propagating his views find fault with Moon Jae In's administration for failing to reach a new agreement with the US on defense cost sharing, they seem to suggest that South Korea has no alternative other than a catastrophic failure of the alliance, if they don't pay up. General Shin apparently recognize Trump's misplaced America first orientation and his treatment of military affairs as a business, referencing the departures of Generals Mattis and Kelly. Nevertheless, as a practical matter he seems to place all the responsibility on this state of affairs on President Moon. (Looking over the links prompted by a search for his opinions in google, he faults President Moon for just about everything.) General Shin says President Moon has poured "fuel on the fire" by acting as a mediator for North Korea, getting ahead of the US, and making military agreements with North Korea concerning the disposition and use of conventional forces, which make South Korea "more vulnerable."

General Shin reminds readers of the failure of the US to come to the aid of South Vietnam after it signed an agreement to withdraw its forces in 1973. Shin suggested that it's even less likely that the US would come to the aid of South Korea after it withdraws forces from South Korea. This apocalyptic vision appears to be a bit much. However, the risk of harming the alliance is possible, if responsible leaders don't come forward and make the case for the South Korea, fiscally, in the US-South Korean alliance as did David Maxwell, in his recent opinion in The Hill.

https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/423756-a-looming-threat-to-the-us-south-korea-alliance

General Shin, doesn't reference the fiscal numbers cited by David Maxwell, that demonstrate for short sighted and ill founded political purposes, Trump is exploiting the situation of an ally who is paying more for its defense proportionally than any other other ally the US has.

Shin In Kyun, the South Korean military analyst (no apparent relation to General Shin, he says they are friendly), dismisses the huge costs of the USFK move to Camp Humphreys, and says that this is something that the South Korean government negotiated and is unrelated to an appropriate consideration of shared costs. Shin In Kyun simply avoids the GDP percentage argument raised by David Maxwell, because it doesn't fit his bias in favor of the US and Japan. He also states that South Korea faces a higher threat level than Japan, which is questionable, and that South Korea makes no contribution to the US side of the alliance, as if the US gains no strategic benefit whatsoever from its only military position on the mainland in northeast Asia.


Shin in his National Defense podcasts on this subject completely disregards the purchases of US military hardware made by South Korea over the years while emphasizing those of Japan. Japan's GDP is more than three times greater than South Korea's yet they only spend somewhat more than twice what South Korea spends on US troop basing costs at roughly the same percentage, 50 percent for Japan, 46 percent for Korea. Japan has nearly twice as many US troops present 54,000 to 28,500 quartered in Korea. Japan only spends one percent of its GDP on defense, while South Korea spends 2.7 percent. The percentage of government budget devoted to defense spending in South Korea is much higher than that in Japan. These differences in resource allocation can be explained by the respective historical experiences of each country in the wars of the twentieth century. Trump's attempt to shift all costs of the US troops on the peninsula entirely to South Korea is ill considered and strategically unsound. The conservative view in South Korea on the defense cost sharing negotiations between the US and South Korea is unsupported by the facts and reflects an effort to weaken and discredit the Moon administration at any cost.