This 2023 file photo shows troops taking part in the Ssangyong (double dragon) exercise, a large-scale amphibious landing exercise between South Korea and the United States. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, May 14 (Korea Bizwire) — An envisioned U.S. national defense strategy may lead South Korea and the United States to explore “greater flexibility” of the 28,500-strong U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) to help keep an assertive China in check, a former senior Pentagon official said Tuesday.
Randall Schriver, former assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, made the remarks, as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has directed Under Secretary of Defense Elbridge Colby to craft the strategy to prioritize raising “burden sharing” with allies and deterring threats from China.
The Pentagon chief’s order for the strategy has added to speculation that President Donald Trump’s administration might seek greater “strategic flexibility” of the USFK to have it focus more on Chinese threats rather than retaining it as a force wholly dedicated to addressing North Korean threats.
“I think the national defense strategy will lead the alliance to explore things like greater flexibility of U.S. forces on the peninsula to not only be ready to fight tonight but to think about the broader competition with China, and think about how the U.S. and ROK can partner in the region on a range of things that assist with that competition,” he said during a press meeting hosted by the Institute for Indo-Pacific Security (IIPS).
ROK is short for South Korea’s official name, the Republic of Korea.
Randall Schriver, former assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, speaks during a forum in Seoul on May 14, 2024. (Yonhap)
Schriver’s remarks came amid a reemerging debate over the USFK’s strategic flexibility — not a novel concept given that the U.S. military has been exploring ways to leverage its regional allies and partners to deal with the shifting geopolitical landscape marked by China’s increasing assertiveness.
As Colby, the Pentagon’s top policymaker, is tasked with writing the strategy, the debate gained greater steam.
During an interview with Yonhap News Agency last year, Colby mentioned the need for a USFK overhaul to make it “more relevant” to handling China-related contingencies rather than being held “hostage” to countering North Korean challenges.
Schriver also anticipated that there might be discussions between Seoul and Washington about burden-sharing issues related to the Special Measures Agreement (SMA), a defense cost-sharing deal that he portrayed as “narrow” in its scope.
The SMA covers three key areas — costs for Korean USFK workers, the construction of military facilities and other logistical support. But the U.S. was known to have wanted to expand the scope of the SMA coverage.
Tuesday’s press meeting was held to mark the launch of the IIPS. It was previously called the Project 2049 Institute, a think tank founded in 2008.
(Yonhap)
