The MND has decided to postpone the field exercise part of the Ulchi Focus Lens exercises to September or October. However the computer simulation part of the exercises will go on as scheduled.
This begs the question, are the progresives that desperate enough to have face time with KJI to the point where they have to meddle with the ROK military’s readiness? Well, they have given money to the North with no questions asked, plus to them Japan is more a threat than North Korea, so I guess to them postponing a major military exercise is no big deal. Besides, making sure the President retires with a legacy is probably more important than worrying about the future security of the peninsula.
{ 21 comments… read them below or add one }
If there remained any doubt as to who pitches and and who catches in North-South relations…
That retiring with a legacy thing seems to be fashionable these days.
For Roh, the goal is simple – Nobel Peace Prize (after the Hyundai corporation slips Kim Jong another $500 million dollar check) or bust!
To South Koreans Japan is more a threat than North Korea ?
Then Roh should propose a field exercise jointly with North Korea at the coming North-South summit meeting. KJI will be most happy to accept the proposal.
I believe Yankees Fan made this call on another thread, not that it was unexpected or anything.
The next question is whether the Taliban will rain on this tryst.
The global security link for “US Forces Korea – Exercises appears to be several years old:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/ex-usfk.htm
///Ulchi Focus Lens, scheduled annually in August, is a computer-based war game exercise with few field activities. About 56,000 South Korean and 20,000 U.S. servicemembers participated last year [1999?].
The exercise focuses on how U.S. and South Korean forces would defend against a North Korean attack. North Korea usually denounces the exercise, calling it a preparation for war. The tank crossing on the Han River was one of the most visual parts of Ulchi Focus Lens. Ulchi Focus Lens also included mock air raids and chemical weapons attacks on the capital during which all streets were cleared…”.
Maybe someone who knows can elaborate here for the benefit of the board as to exactly what field exercises have just been postponed this time. The idea of an “exercise” is to ccmbine the HQ command and control portion with the actual field operations, so to my mind any “war preparation value” that might accrue from this exercise is signifcantly degraded and the whole field portion of the exercise might as well be cancelled (instead of the classic political compromise of “postponed”).
In fact, without any first-hand experience of Korea I’ll go ahead and predict right now that the “field exercise” portion of Ulchi Focus for this year will eventually be quietly dropped, without any public pronouncement. Of course some regular reader or blogger here will pick up on this when it happens, so when (or “if”) this eventually happens request you make a note of it here and link back to this post.
A further qutoe from the above link, as a reminder of the precedents for this: “….The Team Spirit exercise, held between 1976 and 1993 by the U.S. and South Korean militaries, was canceled [in 1993?] in hopes North Korea would abandon its nuclear program and allow international inspections. Team Spirit continued to be scheduled from 1994 to 1996 but was canceled each year as an incentive to improve relations…”
not surprised a bit
“Maybe someone who knows can elaborate here for the benefit of the board as to exactly what field exercises have just been postponed this time.”
Sites like GlobalSecurity.org when describing UFL mistakenly focus only on the combined (US and South Korea) command post exercise–the Focus Lens part of the exercise–and fail to mention the South Korean unilateral field training exercise portion, the Ulchi. This is one of several large-scale South Korean unilateral exercises during the year and focuses on war mobilization.
So the next North-South summit will be in… Sept or Oct.
yes so the actual real time, beneficial training is cancelled but the waste of time 12 hour shifts sitting in a room full of computers is still on
have you ever seen ROK officers during simulation exercises
takes the day shift the first 3-4 hours to get rid of the SOJU from the night before and the night shift the only question to ask is how many hours DID THEY NOT SLEEP!
The following is from my essay that should be printed this coming Thursday in the JoongAng Daily:
“I’m just old enough to remember the 1950′s Broadway show Damn Yankees! One of the memorable moments is when Lola, the temptress employed by the Devil, croons, “What Lola wants, Lola gets.” Actress Gwen Verdon was much more pleasant on the eye than Kim Jong-Il. But it’s during flirtatious interludes, such as the North’s call for the cancellation of this month’s joint ROK-US military maneuvers, I can almost imagine Dear Leader on the world stage sashaying about singing, “What Jong-Il wants, Jong-Il gets.” And with Roh Moo-Hyun, as a stand-in for the vulnerable and gullible Tab Hunter, Dear Leader may succeed as well as Lola did during the first half of the show.
“But, of course, the show’s finale is what really counts. When Tab Hunter eventually wakes up from his adolescent fantasy and takes a mature stock of his situation, Lola’s charms quickly fade. That moment for South Korea could take place during the coming presidential election. And the national election is what this second summit is all about. The next summit may best be summed up in just three syllables: Lee Myung-bak.”
Kindly read the rest on Thursday…
“Maybe someone who knows can elaborate here for the benefit of the board as to exactly what field exercises have just been postponed this time.”
Someone’s not practicing good OPSEC.
BREAKING NEWS: South Korean officials have announced that the computer simulations in their present form are too provocative. The exercises will instead be conducted entirely in Starcraft.
Oh, and those Americans will be participating as the Zerg.
OPSEC hahahahahahaa yeah sure as this exercise is held every year during the same time frame and the north koreans are told about it about 30 days prior at least via a delivered MEMO right up at Pam mun jom
the NORKs start bitching about this 3 weeks before it starts
but i guess this is the best way to acheive a complete OPCON change once the ROK’s take over war time operational command
just cancel everything
I dont think the field training portion of the exercise was beneficial anyway. Having trained with the ROKs during these exercises, all they have done is save a bunch of ROK reservists from a 3 day soju-fest.
“Someone’s not practicing good OPSEC.”
Everything you want to know about the exercise is right here:
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200708/200708140014.html
They ought to be postponing the summit, not the military exercises, what with the devastating flooding going on in North Korea (including Pyongyang)…
Lee Myung Bak is going to be the next president, most definately. He is the right choice.
Lee Myung Bak will refuse to pull something like this.
What Lee will do is support Kae Song.
I think he even stated publicly that he would.
South Korea is incapable of absorbing a North Korea living worse than civil warring nations in Africa. The chance of China moving south increases immensely the worse the situation is in North Korea.
US and Japan military support in case of Chinese moving south is better off not to be expected.
Thus, South Korea shapes and secures its own destiny by making North Korea able to function.
in short, Uri party is doing this for the election, but the general principle behind it is correct, absolutely correct from my viewpoint.
Didn’t everyone here say that there is no way the US will war in Korea over the Chinese occupation of Pyong Yang?
Yes, I believe it, too.
Re: #19
“Thus, South Korea shapes and secures its own destiny by making North Korea able to function.”
What are you smoking ?
The longer South Korea attempts to keep Kim Jong-Il and his cronies on life support, the longer China has to entrench, buy mineral rights (aka “land”), revise history, build its military, and prepare to annex as much of North Korea as possible.
Also, the more South Korea cozies up to Kim Jong-Il and pushes away the U.S., the less likely the U.S. is to come to SK’s aid if or when China decides to annex North Korea. The ROK may have a technological and organizational edge over China now, but in 5 years, the Chinese military will be much stronger than what the ROK can match.
Finally, please don’t make the mistake of assuming Kim Jong-Il and his cronies have the interests of 우리민족 (Korean race) in mind in the least. Kim Jong-Il and his cronies are only thinking of themselves. It’s obvious by their policies they don’t give a rat’s small anus about Korea, Korean culture, or anyone but themselves. Thus, they indirectly keep NK impoverished through their selfish motives. No amount of money from Hyundai, Roh, or the LDP will change that.
Indeed, it’s like giving alcohol to an alcoholic (literally, with Hennessy): it only prolongs the disease/addiction. China has it right : the best way to keep someone weak is to keep them on life support without killing them. China loves Kim Jong-Il for this reason : Kim Jong-Il is (unwittingly) complicit in allowing the NK to be slowly annexed by China.
Nay, the best chance the ROK has to re-unify Korea is to see that Kim Jong-Il goes sooner rather than later, while the U.S. is still here, while China can still be cowered by the ROK and U.S., and before Japan revises its pacifist constitution and adds tension to an already tense region.
Roh and his administration were/are the worst President and administration since 1987. He has squandered perfectly good opportunities at economic growth while pushing away the military muscle the ROK sorely needs to keep China’s greedy hands off of North Korea.
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