The Marmot’s Hole

The Kyunghyang Shinmun is reporting that Washington plans to turn the US 2nd Infantry Division, currently deployed permanently in Korea, into a rotational unit.

It also reports that Washington plans to officially launch Korea Command, or KORCOM, on Oct 14, 2010 — a full year and a half before the transfer of wartime operational command to the Korean military.

The Kyunghyang quotes a Korean government source as saying that that as part of its global deployment strategy of strategic flexibility, the US planned to leave 2ID’s heavy weaponry permanently in Korea, but the manpower — focused on the 1st Heavy Brigade — would be deployed to Korea on a rotational basis. The source added that Washington judged that it couldn’t have 2ID just sitting in Korea permanently at a time when the US was facing manpower shortages.

The source also said the Korean government was opposed to the plan. He said, “When one considers the special situation on the Korean Peninsula, where [we're] confronting the North Korean military, the US Second Infantry Division must be permanently deployed here, like it is now… The government plans to sufficiently convince the American side during the course of discussions on the transfer of operational command.”

Should the US plan go through, 2ID could easily be deployed to the Middle East and other hot spots. In fact, on Dec 20, Washington announced its largest redeployment plan since World War II, involving the redeployment of one third of US forces by 2011.

A high-ranking Korean military official told the Kyunghyang Shinmun that the US military — with speedy deployment in mind — originally planned to deploy a Stryker Battalion Combat Team to Korea, but this plan was scrapped years ago due to the force’s lack of survivability and firepower. Instead, he said, it appears the US wants to improve firepower by keeping 2ID’s equipment in Korea, while rotationally deploying manpower in order to maintain the advantages of a rapid deployment force.

He also said the US military would officially launch KORCOM in October 2010. This would be done since the US military, having sufficiently trained through “Key Resolve,” believes it would be able to carry out its mission to support the Korean military by then. Key Resolve, formerly known as RSOI, is a training operation focusing on the rapid reception, staging, onward movement and integration of US reinforcements in the event of an emergency on the Korean Peninsula.

With the creation of KORCOM, 8th Army Command would turn into a headquarters commanding US ground forces in Korea, 7th Fleet would turn into a maritime command headquarters, while 7th Air Force would become an air command headquarters.

The US decision to launch KORCOM ahead of schedule is being interpreted as strong statement by the United States that it plans to turn over wartime operational command on schedule.

In addition, with the abandonment of the “X” terminology — indicating a future-oriented reorganized unit — 2ID will not be called UEX, nor US 8th Army Command called UEY. USFK plans to keep the concept of “future-oriented divisions,” but the new terminology seems to have led to some confusion, so it’s been ditched.

MARMOT’S NOTES: Well, you all know my take on this: the faster USFK ground forces are out of Korea, the better — for both sides.

Ordinarily, I’d say the argument reportedly coming from the Korean side — that Korea’s “special condition” requires a permanent deployment of US troops to Korea — holds no water in light of the Roh administration’s Defense Reform 2020 plan, which calls for the reduction of ROK military manpower to 500,000 men (a cut of 181,000 men).

The problem, however, is that Korea Inc.’s got a new CEO, and said CEO’s transition team has already announced that the new administration will review Roh’s defense reform plan, citing North Korea’s 1.7 million men under arms and its nuclear program. The transition team announced at the same time that the agreed date of the transfer of wartime operational command from the United States to Korea — April 17, 2012 — also needs to be reviewed, albeit premised on “sufficient discussion with the US side.” And according to the transition team, the Defense Ministry told them that it would push the transfer as planned, but it would “consider the need to adjust the timing” depending on changes in the security environment.

My guess is that IF the Kyunghyang report is true, it’s USFK’s way of telling the new Korean administration that times have changed, and if they think — after all the bullshit accompanying the operational control and USFK redeployment issues — that the change in management is going to put it stop to everything, they’re seriously mistaken. And the leak is the Roh administration’s way of making sure Lee and Co. understand that.

Still, you have to feel at least a little sorry for Lee’s team — none of them liked what Roh was doing with USFK, but they’re going to inherit the results.

I’d like to think that Lee’s pragmatic enough to realize that the smaller the footprint USFK has in Korea, the better for the alliance. And besides, he can’t really expect Washington to keep subsidizing Korea’s defense so Seoul can skimp on military spending in favor of, say, mega-canal projects and building international finance centers on reclaimed land in the middle of nowhere.

Nevertheless, I’ll be keen to see how Lee reacts should Washington actually try to change the deployment status of 2ID. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least that he and his jaebeol buddies already have plans to induce USFK to stay by building for them a mega-base — dare I say a US military “hub” — complete with a man-made river flowing down the parade ground.

UPDATE: “Lies! All Lies!“, says USFK commander Gen. B.B. Bell (HT to commenter):

“Gen. B. B. Bell is a strong proponent of long term and permanent stationing of U.S. military forces in Korea,” Col. Franklin Childress, the spokesman for the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command (CFC), said in a press release.
[...]
“It is his desire,” the statement added, “(to) transform all assigned U.S. forces to three-year family-accompanied tours for U.S. servicemembers, instead of the one-year family-unaccompanied tours which currently characterize U.S. Forces Korea stationing.”
[...]
“To suggest that the 2nd Infantry Division will become a rotating unit is a complete fabrication,” Gen. Bell was quoted by the CFC spokesman as saying.

This is why I love this place.