Trump Administration Weighs Troop Cut in South Korea

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

The Pentagon has presented the White House with options to reduce the American military presence in South Korea as the two countries remain at odds over President Trump’s demand that Seoul greatly increase how much it pays for the U.S. troops stationed in the country, U.S. officials said.

The Pentagon’s Joint Staff has reviewed the structure of U.S. forces in South Korea as part of a broader re-examination of how to reposition and potentially reduce military deployments world-wide, a U.S. military official said.

Trump administration officials declined to spell out contingency plans to shrink the American military presence in South Korea below the current level of 28,500 U.S. troops and said no decision to reduce the force has been made.

The disclosure comes as Mr. Trump has unnerved allies by deciding to remove 9,500 of the 34,500 U.S. troops permanently stationed in Germany and as one of the president’s most outspoken advisers has signaled that more troop withdrawals might occur.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/trump-administration-weighs-troop-cut-in-south-korea/ar-BB16Scnv?li=BBnb7Kz

Sounds like he's playing to his friends Kim Jong Un and Putin.

[soryang]

1. This is just posturing for the stalled negotiations with South Korea

No one in Washington agrees with this. Esper, Pompeo and drumpf think they can create an alternative reality in the media which will intimidate South Korean officials. The latter understand the scheme much better than the US administration understands them. Two armored brigade rotations have already taken place since the US was threatening to do this in earlier negotiations.

Fat chance. That was bs bluffing.

Without making much headway with imposing costs for the much vaunted "Indo-Pacific strategy" on Seoul; negotiations with Japan coming up soon aren't likely to go any better. Seoul isn't going to pay for the "great white fleet" to intimidate China in South China Sea. Trump the "deal maker" was going to make an example out of South Korea and use it as a precedent to negotiate with other allies. It's a failure. With total democratic control of the National Assembly and the armed forces in South Korea, this is going nowhere.

The US raised the cost of the nine month rotations by rotating unit armor with every deployment. Now they want someone else to pay for that?