By In today’s Korea Times there was yet another complaint about ROK Army forces falling under the command of the USFK commander General Laporte:
The recent series of frictions in the bilateral military alliance is attributable to Korea’s outgrowth from the basic framework half a century old. Nothing tells the imbalance between the two nations more symbolically than that the 700,000-strong Korean Army should follow the command of the 37,000 U.S. troops if war eventuates. The geopolitics surrounding this peninsula will always limit its self-defense capability, but that should hardly be the reason for the extremely disproportionate relationship with foreigners. Korea needs _ and deserves _ some maneuvering space.
First of all USFK only has 32,500 soldiers right now. Secondly General Laporte would only command the ROK Army in case of a full scale war with North Korea. He has no control of the ROK Army during peace time. Then to infer that General Laporte only commands 32,500 soldiers is misleading. There will be thousands of reinforcements from the US plus all the Naval and US Air Force assets that would be involved in a second Korean War. The vast majority of combined arms power (ie: MLRS, bombers, stealth bombers, cruise missiles, submarines, etc.) is provided by the US which a US general is trained to unleash on the enemy. A ROK Army general has no experience with the sophisticated weaponry the US can bring to bear on an enemy thus the need for an American commander during war time.
It is the sad reality. No mistake...
7:33 am on January 6th, 2007 1
Nice rebuttal.
7:33 am on January 6th, 2007 2
A natural question that occurs to this unworthy one is whether or not this editorial is strictly the opinion of editors at the paper, or whether it is a "stalking horse" (ie reflects an actual opinion held by some/many/all ROK political and military leaders).
If the latter, then US President, SecDef, JCS, Pac Command, and USFK should offer to withdraw US forces at the upcoming summit. Maintain the alliance though, indeed offer to still provide the assets detailed above in the event of war — but let's place the responsibility for decision-making on use and targeting of them squarely on ROK political/ military chain of command. If they want the responsibility we should be more than happy to provide it to them, it's their country after all.
Be careful what you ask for ROK you just might get it.
It's always interesting to see these examples of various ROK citizens desperately trying to find a way to "split the difference" between the "extreme" Bush administration and their ethnic brothers up North. What's the Biblical saying about threading a camel through the eye of a needle? Hmmm, I can't get it straight in my head, about all I can remember for sure is that it's extremely hard for a rich man to get into heaven.
Same thing applies to ROK trying to find a "third way" between DPRK and US. I suppose they learned that lesson from watching the Clinton administration in action; it's not one that will serve them well IMO.