US President Joe Biden enjoys ice cream as he greets US troops during his visit to the Air Operations Center at Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, May 22, 2022. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
SEOUL, September 26 (Reuters) – Tensions over Taiwan have raised the thorny issue of whether US troops based in South Korea will engage in any conflict, with American and South Korean officials acknowledging that the peninsula could easily be dragged into a crisis.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol told CNN in an interview broadcast on Sunday that his country wants to work with the United States to “expand freedom”, but in a conflict in Taiwan, North Korea would be more likely to provoke. and that the alliance should focus on that first.
North Korea has a mutual defense agreement with China and military analysts suggest it could coordinate with Beijing or take advantage of the crisis to pursue its own military goals.
‘STRATEGIC FLEXIBILITY’
At his confirmation hearing last year, LaCamera said he would seek to integrate USFK into “operational plans that support US interests and objectives in the region”. Read also : What does the US need in its South Pacific strategy?.
In 2006, amid Washington’s push to mobilize troops for the “war on terror”, Seoul agreed to “strategic flexibility” in which it would “understand”, but not necessarily support, the deployment of USFK units to other locations, as long as it was consulted, it said. Sungmin Cho, a professor at the Pentagon’s Center for Asia-Pacific Security Studies (APCSS) in Hawaii.
“(It) is still ambiguous,” he said. “This needs to be discussed between Seoul and Washington.”
Cho said North Korea could support China in the Taiwan conflict by launching attacks on South Korea, or simply use the conflict as an opportunity to boost its nuclear or missile development.
USFK is very focused on ground forces, which will be of limited use in a conflict that remains focused around the Taiwan Straight, said former General Park Cheol-kyun, who worked on international policy at South Korea’s Ministry of Defense until May.
“You need naval, air force, and intelligence assets, so most of the U.S. forces that can contain or prevent Chinese provocations are mostly in Japan,” he said, but added that the U.S.-South Korean alliance couldn’t afford it. ignore China’s role in the region.
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Reporting by Josh Smith; Edited by Michael Perry
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