U.S. Forces Korea Commander Xavier Brunson said on the 27th (local time) regarding speculation about a reduction of U.S. troops in South Korea that “there is no fact that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has made such comments.” However, he emphasized the strategic flexibility of U.S. troops in South Korea.
Commander Brunson said at a virtual conference hosted by the Korea-U.S. Institute (ICAS) in Washington, D.C., on the topic of “The Korean Peninsula Issue and U.S. National Security” that “to maintain peace through strength, we sometimes must move to different regions,” and noted that “we have a powerful weapon that enables us to achieve that, which is our strong South Korean military.” He added, “One of the top 10 armies in the world is right here in this region, and we have a partnership with them.”
He stated, “We must also see how vast this region is on a global scale,” and added, “Looking at the East Sea from the Korean Peninsula, reports continue about the entry of Russian military into the Air Defense Identification Zone (KADIZ), and looking at the West Sea, there are ongoing reports of violations of the Northern Limit Line (NLL) by China. If we do not look closely at the map, we will not understand why we need to have strategic flexibility.” He mentioned earlier at a symposium of the Association of the United States Army that “U.S. Forces Korea do not focus solely on repulsing North Korea, but are part of a larger Indo-Pacific strategy.”
Regarding the recent speculation about the reduction of U.S. forces in South Korea, he said, “As the highest-ranking commander of U.S. forces stationed in South Korea, my role is to follow the orders of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” adding, “The Chairman has never given me any instructions about (reductions), and he was not quoted in the Wall Street Journal article.”
Earlier, the Wall Street Journal reported on the 22nd that the U.S. Department of Defense was considering a plan to withdraw about 4,500 of the 28,500 troops currently stationed in South Korea and deploy them to the Guam area and other regions in the Indo-Pacific. The U.S. Department of Defense rebuffed the Wall Street Journal’s report shortly thereafter, saying it was “not true.”
Commander Brunson mentioned, “Discussions about troop structure are always ongoing, and we are currently in the interwar years. During such periods, there have always been discussions about military structure,” and he concluded, “Ultimately, no one has ever told me what was mentioned in the Wall Street Journal article.”