The Pentagon foresees a “more limited” role in deterring North Korea, with South Korea taking primary responsibility, according to a policy document released on Friday (Jan 23), a move that could lead to a reduction of US forces on the Korean Peninsula.
South Korea hosts about 28,500 US troops in combined defence against North Korea’s military threat, and Seoul has raised its defence budget by 7.5 per cent for this year.
“South Korea is capable of taking primary responsibility for deterring North Korea with critical but more limited US support,” the Pentagon said in the 25-page National Defense Strategy document that guides its policies.
“This shift in the balance of responsibility is consistent with America’s interest in updating US force posture on the Korean Peninsula.”
SHIFT BY TRUMP TO FOCUS ON US HOMELAND DEFENCE
In recent years, US officials have signalled a desire to make US forces in South Korea more flexible, to potentially operate outside the Korean Peninsula in response to a broader range of threats, such as in defending Taiwan and checking China’s growing military reach.
South Korea has resisted the idea of shifting the role of US troops but has worked to grow its defence capabilities in the past 20 years, with the goal of being able to take on the wartime command of combined US and South Korean forces. South Korea has 450,000 troops.
Its defence ministry said the US military based in the country is the “core” of the alliance that has deterred North Korean aggression and ensured peace on the peninsula and the region.
“We will be cooperating closely with the US to continue developing it in that direction,” it said.
North Korea routinely criticises the US military presence in South Korea and joint drills – which the allies say are defensive – as dress rehearsals for invasion against it driven by what it calls Washington’s hegemonic zeal.
The Pentagon’s top policy official, Elbridge Colby, is due to travel to Asia next week and is expected to visit South Korea, a US official said.
The wide-ranging document, which each new administration publishes, said the Pentagon’s priority was defending the homeland. In the Indo-Pacific region, the document said, the Pentagon was focused on ensuring that China could not dominate the United States or US allies.
“This does not require regime change or some other existential struggle. Rather, a decent peace, on terms favourable to Americans but that China can also accept and live under, is possible,” the document said, without mentioning Taiwan by name.
China, which describes Taiwan as the most important and sensitive topic in its relations with the United States, claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory and has not ruled out the use of force to take control of the island. Taiwan rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims and says only the people of Taiwan can decide their future.
China’s defence ministry has repeatedly said that resolving “the Taiwan question” was a Chinese matter.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/east-asia/us-pentagon-north-korea-more-limited-role-deter-5880651
