Ahead of US-ROK Summit- US Pressure for Joint Military Exercises

(Source- Channel A News Top Ten 04.03) North Korean anger---Fate of Max Thunder? General Craparotta, (joint) military exercises must continue. "South Korean marine forces are welcome to participate in RIMPAC exercises at any time." "You are invited to the Talisman Sabre exercises."


In view of the reduction and renaming of the traditional spring large scale US-ROK joint military exercises Key Resolve, and Foal Eagle, the US has invited Korean marine forces to participate in RIMPAC amphibious exercises and also invited South Korea to play a role in the Joint US Australian Talisman Sabre exercise. The new name for the reduced springtime exercises was Tong Maeng (alliance). The perspectives at the meeting early this week between the US acting Secretary of Defense, Patrick Shanahan, and the Korean Defense Minister, Jeong Kyeong-doo differed somewhat. The Korean side seemed focused on demonstrating in the necessary processes earlier agreed, the qualifications necessary for the transfer of operational wartime control of the Combined Forces Command from the United States to the South Korean military command. Tong Maeng provided the earliest opportunity to begin this process. On the other hand, the US is focused on the joint military exercises necessary to demonstrate the strength of the mutual commitments of the two allies by maintaining and improving operational readiness and military cooperation in the form of joint exercises.

Public invitations by Commander, US Marine Corps Pacific, Lt. Gen. Lewis A. Craparotta, to the South Korean government to participate in RIMPAC and Talisman Sabre out of area joint military exercises, are viewed as ammunition to conservative elements in South Korea who question democratic party President Moon Jae In's commitment to the US Korean alliance and whether that commitment is somehow faltering in the face of his inititives toward North Korea. Those initiatives, among others, included the military agreements affecting military operations in and near the DMZ and Northern Limit Lines and also seeking sanctions waivers for joint North South economic projects. Among other measures tacitly agreed by the allies in the course of negotiations with North Korea related to denuclearization issues were the removal of so called "strategic assets" of the United States Armed Forces from the immediate vicinity of the Korean peninsula and the suspension or reduction of major joint military exercises during the pendency of US- North Korean denuclearization negotiations. The fate of major joint air exercises such as the upcoming Max Thunder seems uncertain at this point. One of the Top Ten analysts stated that the scale of Max Thunder would be reduced and the name would be changed. The RIMPAC and Talisman Sabre exercises represent an opportunity for South Korean forces to operate with US and other allied forces, in regions further from the Korean peninsula and should pose less of an arguable provocation to North Korea.


(Source- Channel A News Top Ten, 04.03) Number One story: US to ROK, "Stand firmly on the side of the alliance." Sensitive differences between the lines. State Dept echos US calls for South Korean participation in US, Japan, Indo- Pacific alliance operations. US calls for a new southern defense strategy by South Korea (for the first time*) to cooperate in a three way Indo-Pacific alliance with the US and Japan.
( *Direct military association with Japan is undesirable from the South Korean administration's perspective and has been a long term US foreign policy objective in Asia. )

Nevertheless recently publicized comments in the Minjok Kiri publication in North Korea, apparently criticized the limited joint military operations in South Korea during the month of March which included US air exercises using the topography of South Korea, with its characteristic mountain and valley formations, to simulate what Sin In Kyun described in his Defense Daily program yesterday as offensive "decapitation" operations. South Korean defense leadership has ceased the use of this terminology finding it inconsistent with an intention to negotiate with North Korea. (The exercise objective according to Shin was to increase proficiency in attacking North Korea, and to "send a message." Shin claimed he gained this understanding at a seminar in which Lt. Gen Craparotta, made a presentation associated with the 70th Anniversary of the foundation of the ROK Marine Corps.) The air exercise in March as described actually involved a limited amount of various helicopters and Osprey aircraft (14 total and an estimated 400 personnel) and perhaps one C-130 aircraft. The North Korean Minjok Kiri commentary mocked the nature of reduced military operations in March as "three penny" yet at the same time criticized the joint military exercises which nevertheless threaten, according to them, the progress in lessening of military tensions on the peninsula.


(Source- Channel A News Top Ten, 04.03) The proffered strategy referred to in a Chinese (Han Ja) classical aphorism, Sacrifice your own flesh to break the adversary's bones.

Channel A News analysts today speculated that perhaps Moon Jae In would try to link further joint ROK military exercise cooperation with the US Indo-Pacific Command to US concessions to the South Korean desire to have some level of economic cooperation initiatives proceed with exemptions from US/UN sanctions on North Korea. This of course is directly tied to the US-ROK differences over the so called "small deal- big deal" dispute in the negotiating approach taken by the US to North Korea at Hanoi. The "small deal- big deal" phrase is used as short hand for the fundamental difference in views between the Moon administration and the US on the proper procedural approach to negotiating with North Korea. Namely, at the US-ROK summit, will the US stick to the all or nothing approach favored by the hardliners like John Bolton in the US, revealed in full play at Hanoi, or return to a step by step or phased approach to build trust between the parties with mutual concessions. One analyst on the program suggested President Moon hoped that a "medium deal," could be brokered.