By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
August 4, 2006

The Pentagon plans to give South Korea wartime operational control over Korean troops within three years and will keep U.S. troop levels at more than 20,000 over the next several years, defense officials said yesterday.
"Things are changing in Korea," said a defense official involved in the changes being drawn up in talks called the Security Policy Initiative.
Following the latest round of U.S.-South Korea talks July 13 and 14, the Pentagon and South Korean military and defense officials agreed to draw up the command transfer plan that will shift combat authority from the U.S.-led combined forces command to a new structure led by South Korean military commanders and supported by U.S. forces.
The goal is to complete the transfer of authority by 2009, but some changes could take five years.
"We are responding to the new realities on the peninsula," the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
Those realities include growing South Korean military capabilities, Seoul's pro-engagement policies toward the communist North, and anti-American sentiments among South Korean leaders.
The shift of operational control of South Korean forces "means that they would take the lead in a conventional war on the Korean Peninsula in deterring and defeating" North Korean forces, the official said.
As for troop levels, officials said there are no plans for major U.S. troop cuts beyond plans to have 25,000 troops by 2008. The Pentagon plans to keep 20,000 to 25,000 troops in the country for the foreseeable future, the official said, noting that the fighting power of both U.S. and South Korean forces will remain constant or increase as new weapons are deployed.
A recent statement by a South Korean defense official that the latest talks did not include discussions of U.S. troops in a future reunified Korea triggered inaccurate press reports that the U.S. planned to pull troops out of Korea, the officials said.
"We're not going away," the senior official said. "We're going to stay and we're going to stay with increased capabilities."
Future forces there will shift from the current force of large ground combat troop units to forces emphasizing air and naval power, the official said. That shift would take place only after the new command structure is set up. The reorganization would abolish current U.S.-led combined forces command structure, set up in 1978 to replace the United Nations command that dated back to the Korean War in the 1950s.
As part of the talks, U.S. and South Korean officials recently completed a comprehensive security assessment of the region and are working on a "joint vision study" that will examine the future of the U.S.-South Korean military alliance.
The study will focus on alliance changes stemming from South Korea's evolving relationship with North Korea, including the prospect of a formal peace agreement to replace the armistice that has been the basis for the half-century-old U.S.-South Korea defense alliance.
"We are trying to anticipate all these stages of evolution that might eventually end up in unification, but may not," the official said. "We may end up in a permanent situation where the two Koreas are de-conflicted, they have a peace treaty, and they're interacting between one another and the alliance will have to be fundamentally restructured."


http://www.washtimes.com/national/20060803-112137-6209r.htm

About time...

And we are rather completely unprepared to take it.

Funny how that works.

Three years was a bit of a shocker. Korea was hoping to get it back in as early as 5 years, but three years works too.

Unprepared or not, this is a big hurdle to get closer to a unified or at least a more cooperative peninsula.

Nope, I only see this as a fumble on the South Korean government's part and needless hole in national defense. 5~10 years, yeah fine, most defense programs are coming to fruition by then anyway. Three? Thats a fumble.

They are gambling with our life insurance. I don't like it and I'll be on a badgering streak on this. I'll honestly hoping to see them all on trial in the next administration.


Trust me, we are not, and will not be ready, in three years. It leaves 2~4 years of hole where millions of lives would be needlessly gambled. Early as possible is not good in this case. Think practicality rather than ideals.

3 years just doesn't give enought time to make appropriate military preparation. It's really funny when you think about it ... reducing military budget while we are unprepared to take over the command. Very funny, man.

I don't think the governemt has any plan to increase military budget now. 2.7% is just too low as military budget ... should be 3%+ at least. As for those who think korea is ready for this takeover, go and do some research. Heck, korea doesn't even have proper missile defense system ... now, the military is just buying obsolete SAM missile from Germany (forgot the name) And, military satellite? hell, no. If the government wants to get that command right back from US, then they should try hard to expand our military intel/defense capability at least. So far, the efforts have been minimal. (I even doubt that we are gonna get E-737 AWACS anytime soon.)

In these days, no politician is giving a $hit on the military. More likely, military department has struggled with politicians who want to cut down military budget.

Patriot PAC-2 ATM Germans have been operating. Not a bad system, just not the newest PAC-3 or even the PAC-2 GEM. The Germans themselves are reducing the Patriot system and will replace it with MEADS, a missile system that will use the PAC-3 missile.

Things just take time. You can't really rush satellite launch schedules. Those things are planned ahead years in advance. You can't buy mulit-million dollar intelligence/surveillance systems with a snap either.

Just because the US is going to give back wartime control of SK forces doesn't mean they're going to abandon Korea. Why would they not continue to supply their allies with intellegence, defence, etc? There's still going to be American soldiers stationed there.

Here's a plan to create a joint defence system between the two countries after the wartime control handover:
http://www.asiafinest.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=83764

They will give less information than they will give the combined command, that is for certain. Don't be naive. US will only give her allies information what they feel they need to know. Combined command was composed of both Americans and Koreans, so they had more raw, sensitive information. Once that is dissolved, they won't, and we don't have the means to replace that capability.

Besides, what the hell does wartime command matter so much if we're going to depend on the Americans for intelligence? Intelligence dictates the actions of military, and if we're going to be slaved to American military intelligence, some piece of paper that says Korean wartime command is independent won't matter at all.

Like I said, less chest thumping; more thinking is what the Korean government needs right now.

I read from somewhere that military grade satelite (Arirang-3 or somthing like that) will be launched and operating by 2012 or 2015. That's one of the reasons why i believe we have to wait until that time.

Actually, they're increasing the defense budget, but not by that large of margin to make that much of difference.

Roh Moo Hyun's defense policies makes no fu-king sense. I'm not even going to bother to list any examples, lets just say he says one thing but his actions are inconsistent; even his actions are inconsistent with his other actions if that made any sense.

Somebody needs to smack him with some common sense.

yea it is a well known fact that he doesnt seem to stop his thoughtless remarks and his policy abusing our anti-american sentiment, but its quite serious this time. think his little attempt is finally bringing a real threat this time, which has to do with SECURITY.