Pentagon announces agreement to withdraw 1/3 of U.S. troops from Korea
INTEL DUMP
The Defense Department announced this morning in a carefully crafted press release that it had reached an agreement with the government of South Korea to permanently pull 12,500 U.S. troops off the Korean peninsula between now and 2008. Currently, approximately 37,000 U.S. military personnel are stationed in Korea, although the 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 2nd Infantry Division, comprising roughly 5,000 soldiers, has been deployed from Korea to Iraq.
The timetable for this move will start with the permanent restationing of that BCT this year — they will not go back to Korea after their Iraq tour. In subsequent years, the U.S. will pull additional chunks of forces out. In addition to the redeployment of U.S. forces to the states, the agreement includes provisions to restation U.S. forces within South Korea — bringing the vaunted 2nd Infantry Division down from its bases just south of the DMZ to a consolidated base well south of Seoul where it can live and train outside of North Korean artillery range. Additionally:
This agreement also includes the transfer of certain missions from U.S. forces to Korean forces, such as South Korean forces taking over security at the joint security area in the demilitarized zone, and the transfer of responsibility for rear area chemical decontamination to a special South Korean unit.
During the second phase, 2005-2006, the United States will redeploy a total of 5,000 troops (3,000 in 2005, 2,000 in 2006), comprising combat units, combat support and combat service support units, units associated with mission transfer areas, and other support personnel.
In the third and final phase, 2007-2008, the United States will redeploy 2,500 troops consisting primarily of support units and personnel.
As part of the agreement, the United States will maintain a multiple launch rocket system battalion and associated counter-fire assets on the peninsula, and initiate a review of U.S. Forces Korea pre-positioned equipment and make adjustments as appropriate.
The United States will continue the $11 billion investment in enhancing U.S. capabilities on the peninsula and in the region to strengthen its mutual deterrent with South Korea. Additionally, the transformation of U.S. Army units in Korea will continue and will lead to a significant overall increase in combat capability.
Analysis: If I'm reading this right, the U.S. is planning to pull the entire 2nd Infantry Division out of South Korea, and to replace it with a rotation of combat units from the states, much like U.S. units now rotate through Bosnia and Kosovo for 6-month tours. That has a number of advantages, from a unit-cohesion and effectiveness standpoint — the individual replacement system in Korea, and the one-year hardship tour there, are anything but efficient and good for unit cohesion. It's probably also good for the Army, which can use this move to continue its transition from a "forward-deployed" mindset to an "expeditionary" mindset.
However, this still represents a major departure in U.S. strategic policy on the Korean peninsula. For 51 years, U.S. troops have stood as a human tripwire between the DMZ and Seoul — a blood wager by this country for peace. By removing the 2nd ID from Korea, and by transitioning the Joint Security Area responsibilities to the South Koreans, we remove this presence in this critical part of South Korea. I have no doubt, given my year there, that the Republic of Korea (ROK) military can defend its own country. But the very presence of U.S. combat troops there, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with our ROK allies in harm's way, had an impact that should be recognized. And I'm not sure yet how this policy shift will affect that strategic and political calculus.
Moreover, it's not clear that this plan is the best idea if we think North Korea is likely to collapse anytime soon. In that event, there will be a massive humanitarian effort of a kind not seen since the end of World War II, and it would be good for the U.S. to have more troops on the ground to participate in that action. Of course, we can let Chinese, Japanese, Russian, and South Korean troops take the lead there — but doing so would cede a great deal of leadership and strategic influence to those other countries, and that may not be the best idea either. (Don't get me wrong — we should work with them, but I don't know that we want to let China take over.)
We'll see how the details of this plan get carried out, and how the Pentagon plans to mitigate its troop withdrawals with other measures such as "transformation" of U.S. military capabilities. My sense is that you can't simply replace ground troops with JDAMs and call it even based on the amount of steel you can put on target — ground troops add a measure of flexibility and capability that you just don't get with technological enhancements or airpower.
More to follow...
Update I: The Washington Post agrees with this assessment, and reports that the South Korean government has serious reservations about the wisdom of this plan at this juncture.
The pullout -- unveiled earlier this year as part of the Pentagon's plan to make U.S. troops stationed abroad more mobile for deployment to global hot spots -- marks one of the most significant reductions in U.S. troops on the Korean Peninsula in decades. However, South Korean officials, whose military was scheduled to pick up the slack, complained that the massive withdrawal was being planned too quickly and that they needed more time to take over the missions now run by U.S. forces. They also said a rapid withdrawal could generate a "security gap" with North Korea. |
