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In a “Statement from the White House” that Trump tweeted from his personal account, but then referred to himself in the third person, Trump said, “the President believes that his relationship with Kim Jong Un is a very good and warm one, and there is no reason at this time to be spending large amounts of money on joint U.S.-South Korea war games."
The statement seemed to be in response to initial confusion from Tuesday’s Pentagon press briefing with Mattis, who in response to a reporter’s question on the exercises, said, “we took the step to suspend several of the largest exercises as a good-faith measure coming out of the Singapore summit. We have no plans at this time to suspend any more exercises.”
Interesting, when I was stationed at Osan we had exercises every quarter. I would be pretty surprised if they indeed suspended all exercises indefinitely by order of the commander in chief.
Let me see. We send thousands of American troops and their dependents to Korea and we then take steps to mitigate their combat effectiveness and the safety of their families.
SK is free to practice all they want, US is free to practice all they want, but just not together. They have a much bigger population and economy than NK, I say let them handle everything themselves and leave us out of it. But if we are going to be there and/or committed, then they should be practicing together as often as needed. This alone would save the lives of US military personnel if a conflict broke out.
Knowing the military, I am sure they are still holding exercises, doing everything except naming it an "exercise".
Let me see. We send thousands of American troops and their dependents to Korea and we then take steps to mitigate their combat effectiveness and the safety of their families.
But at the same time the WH believes this is the only way we get a non-aggressive North Korea.
I believe it's a strategy of "let's try something new and see what happens." I doubt the combat effectiveness of those stationed in Korea is ever in question.
But yeah, obviously Kim Jong Un is a a nutjob and a habitual liar so it's likely we should continue all exercises save for anything short of a full North Korea military disarmament, dismantling, and signed peace treaty.
DoD Indefinitely Suspends Ulchi Freedom Guardian, Other Exercises
WASHINGTON --
To support implementing the outcomes of the Singapore Summit and in coordination with senior South Korean officials, Defense Secretary James N. Mattis has indefinitely suspended select military exercises on the Korean Peninsula, chief Pentagon spokesperson Dana W. White said in a statement issued today.
Mattis today met with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford, and Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Ambassador John Bolton to discuss efforts to implement the results of the Singapore Summit, White said.
The suspended exercises include Ulchi Freedom Guardian, along with two Korean Marine Exchange Program training exercises scheduled to occur in the next three months, White said.
In support of upcoming diplomatic negotiations led by Pompeo, she said, additional decisions will depend upon North Korea continuing to have productive negotiations in good faith.
Interesting, when I was stationed at Osan we had exercises every quarter. I would be pretty surprised if they indeed suspended all exercises indefinitely by order of the commander in chief.
I was stationed at Kunsan. While we did have exercises quite frequently, maybe it was quarterly but it sure seemed more like monthly, they were not joint SK/US exercises. I highly doubt that the U.S. will suspend their "regular" (non-joint) exercises in Korea, although if they did it would make a lot of troops happy. While I was stationed there one of the annual joint exercises was called off to appease NK. That was when Clinton was the president.
I was stationed at Kunsan. While we did have exercises quite frequently, maybe it was quarterly but it sure seemed more like monthly, they were not joint SK/US exercises. I highly doubt that the U.S. will suspend their "regular" (non-joint) exercises in Korea, although if they did it would make a lot of troops happy. While I was stationed there one of the annual joint exercises was called off to appease NK. That was when Clinton was the president.
Given that most forces in South Korea rotate annually, without combined-forces exercises, the ability to operate as a combined force drops immediately and will be gone in a year (the proper term for exercises involving ROK/US forces operating together is "combined"--"joint" is more accurately used for US forces of different services operating together).
If we don't exercise that way, we're going to screw up, get good troops killed, and ultimately fail. See OPERATION EAGLE CLAW for a perfect example.
As already mentioned, if we're not going to do combined exercises, we might as well leave the peninsula...because a war would be combined whether we were prepared for it or not.
Statement by Secretary of Defense James N. Mattis on US-ROK military exercises
The Department of Defense suspended three individual military exercises in order to provide space for our diplomats to negotiate the verifiable, irreversible and complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.
Our military posture has not changed since the conclusion of the Singapore summit and no decisions have been made about suspending any future exercises.
The US-ROK alliance remains ironclad. Our forces maintain a high state of military readiness and vigilance in full support of a diplomatically-led effort to bring peace, prosperity and stability to the Korean peninsula.
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