This sure didn’t take long to come up:
The top American envoy here opposed Friday any rescheduling of South Korea’s retaking of wartime operational control (OPCON) of its troops, saying President-elect Lee Myung-bak has enough time to prepare for the transfer in five years.
The remark by U.S. Ambassador to Seoul Alexander Vershbow conflicts with Lee’s opposition to an early transfer and growing hopes among conservatives here of possible re-negotiation of the timeframe for the transfer. [Yonhap]
The transfer of operational control is something I would truly have to see to believe. The next time someone in Korea gives you the line about how the US "wants" to be in Korea have them research the operational control issue. When the operational control issue first came up, the Korean military was supposed to take control by 2010. President Roh even came out and said the Korean military was ready to take operational control now if needed. The then US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld called Roh’s bluff and the delay tactics began.
Then in December 2006 when Secretary Rumsfeld resigned the Korean government took advantage of the change in the Pentagon in order to cancel the USFK funding deal that had been reached just weeks before, delay the Camp Humphreys relocation, and most importantly delay the turn over of operational control to 2012. I said back in February when the operational control was delayed to 2012, to not expect the Koreans to commit to 2012 either. As you can see with a new Korean president coming into power, the Korean government is trying to play the delay game again.Â
The bottom line on this is that despite the Korean demagoguery that the US military "wants" to be in Korea, the fact of the matter is that the US military has been trying to reduce the force footprint in the country for years. The Korean government doesn’t want the US down size and for Korea to take more responsibility for their own defense because they get such a great discount with USFK. For the few hundred dollars they pay every year for the upkeep of USFK, which most of it goes to pay Korean workers, the Korean government gets a state of the art military, air force, naval, air defense, communications, and & intelligence capabilities that they would otherwise have to buy themselves.Â
It doesn’t matter who the president in Korea is because the delay game will always be the same.
Popularity: 3%
2:54 pm on December 26th, 2007 1
Having been involved in an exercise in futility on this very subject with the ROK Navy I think it is clear that the ROKS are perfectly comfortable with things as they are now-all rhetoric aside.
US Staffs are trying to make the ROK staffs function like theirs and it just does not work. In many ways the ROK Navy at least is not prepared to function as a component commander and we are kidding ourselves if we think that is going to change soon.
What I really think is a hoot is the stated purpose of the project I was working on was to get everything agreed to prior to the election. In the end the ROKS agreed to nothing and we WASTED 12 weeks of our lives because of the mismanagement of the US principals. Leave it just as it is if you ask me-except get rid of GO #1 and the curfew.
3:56 pm on December 26th, 2007 2
Pharaoh, let my people go!
8:25 pm on December 26th, 2007 3
same on the army side the staff always say how their ROK counter part just doesnt give a shit or doesnt get it
biggest obstacle/challenge spoke upon in front of GO’s is
the transformation and getting the ROK’s up to speed
10:53 pm on December 26th, 2007 4
I love it when I am right…
Lots to blog about, no energy to do it. However I was interested to see GI Korea explain why we just wasted 12 weeks of our lives working on a pointless project….
7:47 am on December 27th, 2007 5
Screw em! If they ain’t ready, too bad! It’s time for em to take over the defense of their own country and use their own asses as a tripwire!
3:12 pm on December 28th, 2007 6
As long as Korea has to foot a large chunk of the bill, and the Korean military (and civilian) leadership doesn’t want USFK to leave, none of this will happen.
The US will have to force SK’s hand before such changes occur, and we don’t have the will to do so.
Most of South Korea doesn’t want the changes, in part, because they see it as a major step in USFK leaving.
The others who might want that to happen still don’t want the changes, because they don’t want to pay for them and know they can’t get the citizens as a whole to agree to pay th emassive costs.
The Status Quo will live on until North Korea collapses - however long that takes…
3:40 pm on December 28th, 2007 7
But what if the entire machination is all a Big Lie, and both North and South Corea [sic] don’t want us to go?