A former U.S. Department of Defense official, who is being mentioned as a potential candidate for the National Security Advisor of the White House in the event of former President Donald Trump winning the U.S. presidential election, argued that the primary mission of the U.S. forces in Korea should shift to containment of China. There is no need to station U.S. troops in Korea for this purpose.
Photo= Yonhap News
Elbridge Colby, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development, said in an interview with Yonhap News in Washington D.C. on the 6th, “We should no longer hold U.S. troops hostage on the Korean Peninsula to solve North Korea, which is not America’s main problem.”
He explained, “South Korea should bear the primary, overwhelming responsibility for defending their country against North Korea because the U.S. does not have the military power prepared to fight both North Korea and China at the same time.”
He argues that South Korea should reduce its dependence on the U.S. and maximize its defense against North Korea’s conventional threats. At the same time, the U.S. should conserve its strength to face China, its biggest threat, and only support South Korea if China directly intervenes in the Korean Peninsula.
He also argued that the U.S. needs to revise the current U.S.-South Korea operational plan of massively reinforcing troops in the event of a Korean Peninsula crisis, as the U.S. military power is not strong enough to wage multiple large-scale wars simultaneously.
Regarding Trump’s recent suggestion in a Time interview that U.S. forces in Korea could be withdrawn if South Korea does not pay more for defense, he said, “It’s important for South Korea to contribute fairly to maintaining U.S. troops on the Korean Peninsula, as U.S. forces in South Korea are primarily stationed for the defense of South Korea.”
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