"Listen up - there's no war that will end all wars."
= Haruki Murakami
"Do not swallow bait offered by the enemy. Do not interfere with an army that is returning home."
- Sun Tzu
"Have you ever stopped to ponder the amount of blood spilled, the volume of tears shed, the degree of pain and anguish endured, the number of noble men and women lost in battle so that we as individuals might have a say in governing our country? Honor the lives sacrificed for your freedoms."
- Richelle E. Goodrich
1. U.S. Defense Secretary on Mission to Save Asian Military Alliances
2. U.S. ready to use 'full range' capabilities to defend South Korea
3. North Korea threatens military escalation as clock ticks on year-end deadline
4. US Defence Secretary Esper says joint drills with South Korea could be scaled back to aid North talks
5. US defence chief heads to Seoul to save security alliance to counter North Korea and China
6. Esper: American military could alter drills to boost talks with North Korea
1. U.S. Defense Secretary on Mission to Save Asian Military Alliances
With respect Mr. Secretary: To "save" the Asian military alliances you must reaffirm that our alliances are built on shared interests, shared, values, and shared strategy against shared threats and are not simply transactional. We must prioritize mutual security with our allies and not undermine security for keeping a balance sheet in the black. We must be careful about the tone we set with South Korea as it will impact our entire alliance structure for years to come. We have alliances because they first and foremost support US interests.We must think about our National Security and National Defense Strategies and the importance of alliances. We must also think about the ideological war we are fighting with the revisionist and rogue powers. Our NSS says we are in global competition between countries that want to impose authoritarian regimes versus the freedom loving countries who seek to protect liberal democracy, free market economies, freedom and individual liberty and human rights. The ideological war between the ROK/US alliance and north Korea is a microcosm of the global competition/conflict. We should consider that as we think about our alliance structure.
U.S. Defense Secretary on Mission to Save Asian Military Alliances
Mark Esper attends a welcoming ceremony at Fort Myer in Arlington, Virginia, on Sept. 30.
Photographer: Chris Kleponis/CNP/Bloomberg
Defense Secretary Mark Esper arrives in South Korea Thursday to a host of strains on one of America's most important military alliances, including a demand from President Donald Trump to pay about five times more to host U.S. troops.
Esper's high-stakes mission -- the start of an eight-day trip through Asia -- begins with his arrival in Seoul. Its results could determine how well the Trump administration can keep allies Japan and South Korea together as they face threats from the likes of North Korea, and whether other countries hosting U.S. troops will face Trump's pressure to pay far more to keep doing so.
The Pentagon boss is also facing a Nov. 23 deadline for South Korea letting expire an intelligence pact with Japan reached three years ago that was seen as a breakthrough in getting the frequent adversaries to cooperate independently of the U.S. Meanwhile, North Korea has given Trump until the end of the year to sweeten his offer for Pyongyang's nuclear disarmament or risk it ratcheting up security risks to new levels.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in's government has tried to play down any differences with Trump, who holds the cards on Moon's key policy of seeking rapprochement with North Korea. Seoul has also reiterated its plans to terminate the intelligence-sharing pact, a move the U.S. says could hurt it, South Korea and Japan.
"If Moon says 'no' to to the issues of cost sharing and the intelligence pact and a compromise is not reached, then not only would the alliance plummet, but the Korean Peninsula could be hit with grave security consequences," said Duyeon Kim, a senior adviser for Northeast Asia and nuclear policy at the International Crisis Group.
U.S. officials say the dispute between Japan and South Korea plays into the hands of China and North Korea by dividing key allies.
Esper made that point en route to Asia, telling reporters on his plane Wednesday that he will urge Japan and South Korea to "get beyond these issues" and "focus on how we partner as allies to deter North Korean bad behavior and, then in the long term, deal with the Chinese. The only folks who are benefiting from this dispute right now are North Korea and China."
A timeline for U.S.-South Korea troop funding talks
Dec. 2018 - U.S. wants South Korea to double its payment and cut term of funding deal from five years to two, Chosun newspaper reports
February - U.S. and South Korea reach one-year deal that calls for Seoul to contribute about $1 billion to host some 28,500 U.S. service members
March - Administration officials tell Bloomberg News that Trump wants countries to pay all costs and a 50% premium on top of that for the privilege of hosting
October - U.S. seeks nearly $5 billion from South Korea for troops, reports in South Korean media said
But as a national election approaches for parliament in April, Moon risks alienating his progressive base if he is seen as giving away too much to Trump -- especially after South Korea in October said it
would abandon its developing-nation privileges at the World Trade Organization following charges by the Trump administration that it was taking advantage of the status.
"We don't think the termination would weaken the alliance with the U.S.," a presidential Blue House official who asked not to be identified told reporters last week. Moon's government has placed responsibility for its move on Japan, saying it won't bend unless Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government rolls back export restrictions it put in place a few months ago as relations between the neighbors plummeted.
As Esper was heading to Asia, North Korea blamed U.S. and South Korean joint military drills "as a main factor of screwing up tensions." It also reminded the Trump administration that leader Kim Jong Un has given it a year-end deadline to ease up on sanctions or "face a greater threat" from Pyongyang, its official KCNA news agency reported, citing an unnamed State Affairs Commission spokesman.
When it comes to troop funding, Japan may find itself inescapably linked to what happens in South Korea.
Esper lands in Seoul with Trump demanding South Korea pay about $5 billion for the privilege of hosting U.S. troops, about five times more than current levels. The price tag originated with the White House, according to people familiar with the matter, and administration officials justify it by saying it reflects the costs South Korea would incur if it takes operational control of combined U.S.-South Korean forces in the case of a conflict.
Esper -- who will continue on to Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines -- wouldn't discuss a specific dollar figure with reporters on his plane to Asia, but suggested South Korean contributions should increase sharply.
"We have asked for a significant increase in the cost sharing for our deployed troops," Esper said.
Japan and the U.S. reached
a five-year deal in 2016 where Tokyo bears costs for local staff, utilities and training relocation. Japan is set to pay 197 billion yen ($1.8 billion) this year, although the U.S. does not publish costs of maintaining the bases. Some experts say it's probably cheaper for the U.S. to keep its troops in Japan than to bring them home.
- With assistance by Nick Wadhams
(
Adds North Korea official media report in 10th paragraph.)
2. U.S. ready to use 'full range' capabilities to defend South Korea
Good words from General MIlley. We must demonstrate strategic reassurance and strategic resolve as the foundation of deterrence. I have not found the text of the Joint Communique of the 51st Military Committee Meeting that took place on Thursday in Seoul, It is not yet posted on the DOD website but obviously Reuters has a copy of it. I will post it as soon as I find it or when someone sends me a copy.
U.S. ready to use 'full range' capabilities to defend South Korea
Reuters · by Joyce Lee, Hyonhee Shin4 Min Read · November 14, 2019
SEOUL (Reuters) - A top U.S. military officer reaffirmed on Thursday that the United States is ready to use the "full range" of its capabilities to defend South Korea from any attack, a joint statement after a meeting with officials in Seoul said.
Senior U.S. defense officials are gathering in Seoul for annual meetings as the two countries face intensifying threats from North Korea to stop joint military drills and for the United States to change its approach in denuclearization talks.
The United States is also seeking a greater financial contribution from South Korea for hosting American troops, while urging Seoul to revoke its decision to scrap an intelligence-sharing pact with Japan known as GSOMIA, which Washington fears would undermine trilateral cooperation.
General Mark Milley, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, met his South Korean counterpart General Park Han-ki for the annual Military Committee Meeting (MCM) on Thursday.
Both sides discussed ways to maintain solid defense posture and a planned transfer of wartime operational control to South Korea, the joint statement said, even as they have scaled back joint exercises to expedite negotiations with North Korea.
Milley reiterated the "continued commitment to providing extended deterrence", the statement said.
"He affirmed that the United States remains prepared to respond to any attack on the Korean Peninsula, using the full range of U.S. military capabilities."
DENUCLEARIZATION TALKS
U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper visits Seoul later on Thursday, ahead of a meeting with South Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo for the annual Security Consultative Meeting (SCM) on Friday.
Esper said on Wednesday he was open to changes in U.S. military activity in South Korea if it helped diplomats trying to jump-start stalled talks with North Korea.
Pyongyang has derided the U.S.-South Korea exercises as hostile, even in the current reduced form. On Wednesday, it threatened to retaliate if the allies go ahead with scheduled drills in a rare statement from the State Affairs Commission, a top governing body chaired by leader Kim Jong Un.
Cheong Seong-chang, a senior fellow at South Korea's Sejong Institute think-tank, said the North's statement appeared to be aimed at justifying future North Korean military actions.
TRILATERAL COOPERATION
Milley has hinted at raising the troop cost sharing and Japan issues, though the joint statement did not address them directly.
"Chairman Milley is expected to focus on South Korea increasing its contribution for defense costs and extending GSOMIA," a South Korean military source said.
U.S. President Donald Trump's insistence Seoul take on a greater share of the cost of 28,500-strong American military presence as deterrence against North Korea has rattled South Korea. It could also set a precedent for upcoming U.S. negotiations on defense cost-sharing with other allies.
A South Korean lawmaker said last week that U.S. officials demanded up to $5 billion a year, more than five times what Seoul agreed to pay this year under a one-year deal.
Washington has also been pressing Seoul to reconsider its decision to scrap the GSOMIA intelligence-sharing pact with Japan. The pact, which South Korea decided not to renew, expires on Nov. 23.
Esper said on Wednesday that GSOMIA "must be maintained" for cooperation between the United States, South Korea and Japan against any "North Korean bad behavior", adding the dispute was only benefiting North Korea and China.
Seoul's Defense Ministry spokeswoman Choi Hyun-soo said on Thursday it would reexamine GSOMIA "if Japan withdraws its unjust retaliatory measures and friendly relations between the two countries recover".
Relations have plunged after South Korea's top court last year ordered Japanese firms to compensate some wartime forced laborers, and Japan curbed exports of key industrial materials to South Korea in July.
Reporting by Joyce Lee and Hyonhee Shin; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Alex Richardson
3. North Korea threatens military escalation as clock ticks on year-end deadline
We must not be swayed by north Korean rhetoric. If we give in an allow a Trump-Kim summit or provide any kind of sanctions relief we will set back negotiations decades as we will confirm to Kim that the Kim family regime playbook (political warfare with Juche characteristics) and his "long con" remains in effect. Kim will say the Juche version of the "Art of the Deal" is superior.
Actually Kim has painted himself into a corner and his end of year deadline is a red line for him that will backfire. We have a chance to break the pattern of blackmail diplomacy - the use of provocations and increased tensions to gain political and economic concessions if we hold the line and do not respond to this rhetoric with concessions.. The only point we should give on is working level negotiations. We must keep pressing for substantive working level negotiations. Allowing or Trump-Kim summit or reducing our exercises and training or providing sanctions relief will not change Kim's behavior for the better but will only embolden him to make more demands. The way out for Kim is to allow working level negotiations.
North Korea threatens military escalation as clock ticks on year-end deadline
SEOUL - North Korea has a message for President Trump and the United States: The clock is ticking, and a bomb is about to explode.
There are seven weeks until North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un is scheduled to deliver a keynote New Year's Day speech. That will come a day after his self-imposed year-end deadline expires for the United States to come up with new proposals to restart nuclear talks.
On Wednesday - with Washington transfixed on the House impeachment inquiry - North Korea significantly raised the stakes, making an implicit threat to resume long-range missile or nuclear tests. In an
official statement, the North said it felt "betrayed" by a U.S. decision to continue with joint air drills with South Korea, calling it an "undisguised breach" of an agreement made between Kim and President Trump in Singapore last year.
As a result, North Korea said it no longer felt bound by previous commitments. That could signal plans to resume nuclear or long-range missile tests.
"The U.S. is not accepting with due consideration the year-end time limit that we set out of great patience and magnanimity," the statement from the country's State Affairs Commission said.
"We, without being given anything, gave things the U.S. president can brag about but the U.S. side has not yet taken any corresponding step," it added. "Now, betrayal is only what we feel from the U.S. side."
Trump has repeatedly boasted that North Korea has stopped conducting nuclear or long-range missile tests under his watch, although it has conducted about a dozen shorter-range ballistic missile tests since April. But Pyongyang says Trump has reneged on a promise to end joint military exercises with Seoul.
'No sufficient time left'
Relations between the two sides deteriorated sharply after a failed summit in Hanoi in February. Two months later, Kim threatened to take his country on a "new path" unless the United States changed its approach to the talks.
North Korea appears to want sanctions relief and security guarantees - some way of feeling that the regime would not suffer the same fate as Libya's Moammar Gaddafi or Iraq's Saddam Hussein if it scaled back its nuclear program.
If it doesn't get what it wants from Trump, and soon, it may be about to dial up the heat.
"At present, when one party backpedals on its commitments and unilaterally takes hostile steps, there is neither reason nor any excuse for the other party to keep itself bound to its commitments. What's more, there is no sufficient time left," the North's statement said, vowing to answer dialogue with dialogue and "recourse to force in kind."
South Korea says it is taking the threat seriously but insists there is still time to save the day.
Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul said he believed the United States and North Korea would return to the negotiating table before the end of the year.
"If they miss this opportunity, the situation and the environment will get more difficult, and it will become more difficult for us to solve the issues," he said in an interview.
Talks between the two sides in Stockholm ended in October with North Korean delegation officials angrily denouncing their American counterparts. Swedish efforts to revive that process have foundered.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark T. Esper said he took it seriously when any foreign country or leader says something but added that his department's job was "to retain our readiness, deter conflict and if, for some reason, conflict happens, be prepared to fight and win."
Pessimism is rising among the North Korea-watching community of policy experts and analysts. They see the prospect of an escalation in tensions between Washington and Pyongyang.
Robert Carlin, a visiting scholar at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation, said he believed the polarized political atmosphere in Washington limited U.S. negotiators' room to maneuver.
"Do you know how hard it is to pull together a major diplomatic initiative in seven weeks? Do you know how hard it is when the president is moving into impeachment? In Washington, we're seeing the most poisonous atmosphere, so that no matter what the president proposes, it will be torn to shreds," he said in a lecture in Seoul on Tuesday.
If the North Korean leader announces "extremely negative measures" in his New Year's speech, "I cannot see us responding in anything other than a very stern, escalatory way," he said.
"My concern," he added, "is the North Koreans are going to miscalculate."
Andrei Lankov, a professor at Kookmin University in Seoul, said he also believes North Korea will take some "tough" steps early next year - possibly a satellite launch or an intercontinental ballistic missile test.
But Lankov said North Korea would probably hold back from a "dramatic" gesture - mostly to avoid a setback in relations with China, whose role as North Korea's main economic lifeline has grown since sanctions were imposed.
Meanwhile, Kim Yeon-chul, South Korea's unification minister, will travel to Washington and Los Angeles next week as Seoul tries to reprise its role as peacemaker.
But he faces an uphill battle: North Korea has shut off dialogue with the South, and Washington sees Seoul as much less central to the process than it did a year ago. The country has even been replaced as go-between by Sweden.
Still, Kim says he will bring ideas to Washington. He wants the two sides to focus on confidence-building measures; for example, by easing travel restrictions on U.S. citizens of Korean origin who still have relatives in the North.
He suggested they might consider an "Olympics armistice" next year, in which North Korea suspends its missile tests and the United States suspends joint military exercises with South Korea. Japan - which also had deep concerns over North Korea's military and nuclear capabilities - is host of the 2020 Summer Games.
His main message, though: Progress on North Korean denuclearization has to go hand-in-hand with progress in inter-Korean relations, and the three countries, North and South Korea and the United States, all need to work on improving relations.
"So if all of these three relations could make some positive progress and create a virtuous cycle, then we can make successful progress with North Korean denuclearization," he said.
Min Joo Kim contributed to this report.
4. US Defence Secretary Esper says joint drills with South Korea could be scaled back to aid North talks
With respect Mr. Secretary:
I know your advisors know this. We have tested the proposition that if we scale back exercises and training Kim will moderate his behavior and negotiate as a responsible member fo the international community. Since Singapore in June 2018 we have been reducing ROK/US exercises but there has been no reciprocity. north Korea continues to have 70% of the 4th largest army in the world between the DM and Pyongyang with its forces postured for offensive operations. It threatens Seoul with artillery, rockets, and missiles. It continues to develop and field new weapons systems that target ROK and US forces throughout the peninsula. It continues its nuclear and ICBM programs. And it will begin its winter Training Cycle on December 1st for one million soldiers which will bring the nKPA to the highest state of readiness in March which is the optimal attack time due to the frozen ground in the South from the long winter. We have gotten nothing in return for reducing our exercises. I strongly believe that the military must support the political object but we while we are working to support our political objectives we need to keep in mind the north Korean strategy with one of its key lines of effort to divide and conquer - divide the ROK/US alliance to conquer the ROK. Forcing us to scale back our exercises has the short term goal of reducing alliance military readiness (despite the creativity of commanders who are threading the needle to sustain readiness while supporting diplomacy - the commanders are doing good work to sustain readiness but the reality is we are likely having a decline in readiness). The long term goal is to make the US presence on the peninsula untenable. If US forces cannot train on the peninsula there is no way we can keep our forces there. The longer reduced training takes place (or work that training is eliminated) the stronger will be the demands from military leaders to redeploy US forces so that they can properly train. We will playing right into Kim Jong-un's hands.
Although it is counterintuitive to the press, pundits, and politicos, the best support to diplomacy is to have the strongest possible military capabilities. Kim (and his elite and military) must feel the pressure to remain deterred and we must exert the external pressure that will result in the internal threats from the elite and military that will either influence Kim to give up his nuclear weapons when that threat shows him the continued possession of nuclear weapons (and chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles) is a greater threat to his survival than giving them up. And if he does not give them up that internal threat will result in the regime not surviving.
US Defence Secretary Esper says joint drills with South Korea could be scaled back to aid North talks
SEOUL (AFP) - United States military exercises with South Korea could be scaled back to aid diplomacy with the nuclear-armed North, Defence Secretary Mark Esper signalled on his way to Seoul, as Pyongyang said it was running out of patience.
The North has
long protested against joint military drills, which it condemns as preparations for invasion, and has set Washington an end-of-year deadline to come up with a new offer in deadlocked negotiations on its weapons programmes.
The US and South Korea last year cancelled several joint drills in the wake of the Singapore summit between President Donald Trump and the North's leader Kim Jong Un, but are due to carry out a combined air exercise next month.
"We will adjust our exercise posture either more or less depending on what diplomacy may require," Mr Esper told reporters on board his plane to Seoul, where he starts an Asian tour on Thursday (Nov 14).
The possible downsizing of the joint drills should not be seen as a "concession" to Pyongyang, he said, "but as a means to keep the door open to diplomacy".
"The US is not accepting with due consideration the year-end time limit that we set out of great patience and magnanimity," a spokesman for the State Affairs Commission (SAC) said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.
The SAC is the North's top governing body and it is unusual for it to issue such declarations.
Holding the drills would be an "undisguised breach" of the Singapore summit declaration, it said, adding that "betrayal is only what we feel from the US side".
"We no longer feel the need to exercise any more patience," it went on, but gave no details of the "new way" it was threatening to pursue if Washington did not meet its demands.
Negotiations have been gridlocked since the Hanoi summit between leader Kim Jong Un and Mr Trump broke up in February disagreement over sanctions relief and what the North would be willing to give up in return.
Working-level talks restarted in Sweden in October only to break down quickly, with the North blaming the US for not giving up its "old attitude".
Pyongyang has carried out a series of missile tests in recent weeks and months, including one launched at sea, which it said was fired from a submarine - a potential strategic game-changer.
The tests would improve the North's capabilities, Mr Esper acknowledged.
"Anytime you test, you learn something," he said. "We take them very seriously and we watch them very closely, but we're also not going to overreact and do something that, for example, could close the door to diplomacy."
5. US defence chief heads to Seoul to save security alliance to counter North Korea and China
The irony is that the problems within the US alliance structure are of our own and our allies' making, specifically our burden sharing demands and the ROK's decision to with draw from the GSOMIA.
The first statement will be misinterpreted by some Koreans as an infringement on Korean sovereignty. Korea has every right to make a decision that cuts off its nose to spite its face despite the admonitions from the US. The second highlighted statement is important but also subject to misinterpretation by the Koreans who fear the US will drag South Korea into a war with China and that South Korean relations will hinder the economic relationship with China. South Korea is still not fully recovered from China's economic warfare with South Korea over the US deployment of THADD to the peninsula.
And of course China and north Korea are benefiting not only from the GSOMIA issue but from the broader friction within the US alliance structure which is of collective alliance making.
"My message will be very clear ... the GSOMIA must be maintained," Esper said en route to Seoul.
"Let's focus on how we partner as allies to deter North Korean bad behaviour and then in the long term deal with the Chinese.
"The only folks who are benefiting from this dispute right now are North Korea and China. And that is all the reason we need to move beyond this and get back to where we were in terms of working together as partners and allies," said Esper, whose comments came as US and Korean military chiefs met in Seoul on Thursday.
US defence chief heads to Seoul to save security alliance to counter North Korea and China
Mark Esper needs to convince South Korea to stick with intelligence-sharing pact known as GSOMIA despite rift with Japan
An analyst says Moon would rather pay more for the US-Korea defence alliance than soften its stance towards Japan
"My message will be very clear ... the GSOMIA must be maintained," Esper said en route to Seoul.
"Let's focus on how we partner as allies to deter North Korean bad behaviour and then in the long term deal with the Chinese.
"The only folks who are benefiting from this dispute right now are North Korea and China. And that is all the reason we need to move beyond this and get back to where we were in terms of working together as partners and allies," said Esper, whose comments came as US and Korean military chiefs met in Seoul on Thursday.
US Defence Secretary Mark Esper. Photo: AP
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South Korea said it would back out of the agreement amid a
over wartime labour and territorial issues, that led to Japan imposing export restrictions on materials crucial to South Korean industrial production.
"We've made our position very clear," South Korean foreign ministry spokesman Kim In-chul said. "If Japan retracts its unjustifiable export restrictions, we would be willing to consider the decision to terminate GSOMIA."
has shown no signs of backing down, with a poll by the Nikkei media organisation earlier this year showing two in three Japanese respondents believe Tokyo does not need to rush to improve ties with Seoul. Tokyo has been angered by Seoul's insistence Japanese firms must pay reparations to wartime labourers, saying that this issue was already resolved under a 1965 pact to normalise bilateral ties.
Trump's obsession with getting Seoul to pay more for their defence alliance - and recent charges by his administration that South Korea was taking advantage of its developing nation privileges at the World Trade Organisation - have angered the public.
A South Korean lawmaker said last week that US officials demanded up to US$5 billion a year, more than five times the US$924 million Seoul agreed to pay this year under a one-year deal for stationing around 28,500 American troops on the Korean peninsula.
Mark Esper (left), US President Donald Trump and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Mark Milley. Photo: Reuters
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A survey by the government-affiliated Korea Institute for National Unification released last week showed 96 per cent of South Koreans were against paying more for the US military presence.
While US officials have not publicly confirmed the number, Trump previously said the US military presence in and around South Korea was "US$5 billion worth of protection".
Trump has similarly accused allies including Japan, Germany and Nato of not shouldering their fair share of defence costs and negotiations for new deals are set to begin next year.
Let's focus on how we partner as allies to deter North Korean bad behaviour and then in the long term deal with the ChineseMark Esper
Kim Suk-hyun of the Seoul-based Asan Institute of Policy Studies said he believed the US would address GSOMIA and sharing of defence costs "as a package", while his colleague Shin Beom-chul told Reuters he believed US demands on cost-sharing would "get more reasonable as negotiations progress, after raising alarm with extremely high numbers".
Still, any increase would be a burden on the administration, he said.
But Yoon Sung-suk, a political science professor at Chonnam National University said Moon would rather pay more for the defence alliance rather than back down on GSOMIA.
"He can't afford to lose face diplomatically by reversing Seoul's decision to terminate GSOMIA. It would be less embarrassing for Seoul to agree to increase its defence burdens as Japan is also under the same pressure from the US," he said, referring to how Trump also wants Tokyo to pay more for hosting American troops.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Photo: dpa
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Nicholas Szechenyi, from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, warned a prolonged deterioration in Japan-South Korea ties could "potentially embolden North Korea, Russia, and China, which would like to tilt the regional balance of power in its favour by weakening US influence".
However, Szechenyi said continued North Korean provocations could yet persuade Seoul to change course on renewing GSOMIA.
Since the collapse of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's
with Trump in February, Pyongyang has launched a series of short-range missiles. It agreed to suspend nuclear bomb and long-range missile testing in 2017 ahead of the first Trump-Kim meeting in Singapore in June 2018.
if the US went ahead with scheduled military exercises with South Korea, leading Esper to say that these drills could be scaled back to aid diplomacy.
Esper, who was appointed in July, will subsequently travel to Bangkok for a meeting of defence ministers from Southeast Asian countries.
He is also expected to have his first face-to-face meeting with his Chinese counterpart General Wei Fenghe after the Asean meeting, and will then go to Vietnam and the Philippines, two countries involved in territorial disputes with Beijing over the
6. North Korea warns of retaliation against US-South Korea military drills
We cannot be swayed by north Korea's rhetoric. We need to call their bluff. And if we are looking for a rhetorical response we can borrow 43's words - "bring it on."
One thing we know about the Kim family regime -it will not attack strength, it will only exploit weakness in the alliance or in the South or the US. We cannot show weakness. We must realize every demand by the regime is designed to create fiction and weakness within the alliance.
North Korea warns of retaliation against US-South Korea military drills
Washington said last week that the joint aerial exercise planned for next month would be reduced in scope from previous drills
Analysts say North Korea appears to have been emboldened to toughen its approach by the impeachment inquiry into Trump in Washington
North Korea threatened on Wednesday to retaliate if the United States goes ahead with scheduled military drills with South Korea, ramping up pressure on Washington to change course as a year-end North Korean deadline for US flexibility approaches.
The statement came even though Washington said last week that the joint aerial exercise planned for next month would be reduced in scope from previous drills.
"It is self-defence rights" for North Korea to retaliate against any move that threatens its sovereignty and security, according to a statement from the State Affairs Commission, without elaborating.
It is rare for the commission, the supreme governing body chaired by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, to release a statement.
Last week, a senior North Korean diplomat also blamed the US joint aerial drill for "throwing cold water" over talks with Washington. Pyongyang opposes US-South Korean joint military exercises, viewing them as a rehearsal for invasion.
In its latest statement, Pyongyang said it had taken measures to calm Washington's concerns but that the United States had failed to reciprocate, leaving it with a "feeling of betrayal".
Asked to comment on the North Korea statement, the US State Department made no reference to the military exercises, but a spokeswoman referred to an agreement reached between Kim Jong-un and President Donald Trump at their first summit in Singapore in June 2018.
"President Trump remains committed to making progress toward the Singapore commitments of transformed relations, building lasting peace, and complete denuclearisation," she said.
Immediately following his first meeting with Kim, Trump made a surprise announcement that the United States would suspend military drills with South Korea. Since then, major exercises have been halted or scaled back.
Kim in April gave the United States a year-end deadline to show more flexibility in stalled denuclearisation talks.
This statement followed the collapse of his second summit with Trump in Hanoi in February, and has raised concerns that North Korea could return to the nuclear bomb and long-range missile testing that it has suspended since 2017.
North Korea has tested the limits of engagement with a string of short-range missile launches, and analysts say it appears to have been emboldened to toughen its approach by the impeachment inquiry into Trump in Washington.
Senior US Democratic and Republican lawmakers presented duelling narratives on Wednesday as
entered a crucial new phase with the first televised public hearing.
6. Esper: American military could alter drills to boost talks with North Korea
Again, I hate to beat a dead horse but the assumption that altering combined ROK/US training will lead to diplomatic reciprocity from north Korea is patently false. We have tested this proposition for the past 17 months and Kim has been found wanting.
Esper: American military could alter drills to boost talks with North Korea
JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. - Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Wednesday that he is open to the possibility of altering
American military activities in South Korea if it would help advance a diplomatic deal with North Korea to eliminate its nuclear program.
In an interview with reporters flying with him to Seoul, Esper said any changes in military exercises or training would be done in ways that did not jeopardize troops' combat preparedness. And he said they would be done in consultation with the South Korean government.
He would not say what specific adjustments might be contemplated. The U.S. and South Korea already scaled back their 2018 and 2019 military exercises in the hope that it would help move North Korea toward agreement to give up its nuclear weapons. So far that has not worked.
"We will adjust our exercise posture, either more or less, depending on what diplomacy may require," Esper said, adding, "We have to be open to all those things that empower and enable our diplomats" in the nuclear talks.
North Korea has long objected strongly to large-scale American and South Korean military exercises, which it calls preparations for an invasion of the North. President Donald Trump also has criticized the exercises as too costly and provocative, but U.S. military commanders consider them crucial to deterring North Korea and ensuring that any invasion by the North would fail.
"As we consider adjusting - either dialing up or dialing down - exercises, training, stuff like that, we want to do that in close collaboration with our (South) Korean partners, not as a concession to North Korea but, again, as a means to keep the door open to diplomacy," he said.
North Korea on Sunday said it's running out of patience with the United States over what it described as hostile policies and unilateral disarmament demands, and warned that a close personal relationship between the leaders alone wouldn't be enough to prevent nuclear diplomacy from derailing.
By: Kim Tong-Hyung, The Associated Press
Esper said he takes seriously North Korea's statement that the end of this year is
a deadline for the U.S. to change its approach to the nuclear negotiations.
He said he is hopeful that diplomacy will prevail, given the history of tensions on the Korean Peninsula since the North Koreans began launching intercontinental-range ballistic missiles that could eventually be nuclear-armed.
Esper recalled his concern about the prospects for war on the peninsula when he became Army secretary in 2017.
"We were on the path to war," he said. "It was very clear to me because the Army was making preparations." He did not elaborate.
The U.S. has about 28,000 troops in South Korea, and Esper said they must be ready to fight the North at a moment's notice.
Esper also said that during his talks in Seoul this week with his South Korean counterpart, he will express U.S. concern about Seoul's stated plan to withdraw from an intelligence-sharing pact with Japan. Esper said the dispute between Tokyo and Seoul is only helping North Korea and China.
FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
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"A democracy is only as resilient as its people. An informed and engaged citizenry is the fundamental requirement for a free and resilient nation. For generations, our society has protected free press, free speech, and free thought. Today, actors such as Russia are using information tools in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of democracies. Adversaries target media, political processes, financial networks, and personal data. The American public and private sectors must recognize this and work together to defend our way of life. No external threat can be allowed to shake our shared commitment to our values, undermine our system of government, or divide our Nation."
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