US general says drills ‘absolutely’ needed as Korea floats shift

WASHINGTON – The top US commander on the Korean peninsula said regular exercises between the allies are “absolutely” necessary to maintain peace and impose pressure on North Korea, after officials in Seoul floated adjusting the drills to facilitate dialogue with the nuclear-armed neighbour.

“Russian-DPRK collaboration is real. It is not a quid pro quo relationship. It is real,” General Xavier Brunson, the commander of US forces in South Korea, said in a webinar on Dec 11. DPRK stands for the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

“Whenever someone talks about, I don’t care who it is, talks about exercising less or exercising differently, and they need to understand that there are two times in a year where we absolutely need some support,” Gen Brunson said.

He was apparently referring to the allies’ regular drills in the spring and summer that involve some 28,500 American troops stationed in South Korea. 

The general’s remarks appeared to take a different stance to South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, who said over a week ago that he is open to reviewing Seoul’s joint military drills with the US if it would help America resume talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. 

Mr Lee’s national security adviser later said Seoul is not considering drills adjustment as an option right now. However, the country’s point man on North Korea, Unification Minister Chung Dong-young, told reporters this week that they should be able to discuss the issue to start negotiations with Pyongyang. 

When US President Donald Trump pursued talks with Mr Kim during his first term, Washington paused some of the drills which North Korea has long bristled at. Mr Trump and Mr Kim met three times, but those talks failed to persuade the North Korean leader to abandon his nuclear ambitions.

“The only way we can get about solving that is pressure, is provided by our ability to conduct our activities and make the right investments in time now so that we provide the deterrent effect that’s born of this alliance,” Gen Brunson said, calling peace on the peninsula among the “most fragile”.

In an episode highlighting that fragility, South Korea and Japan scrambled jets on Dec 9 as Russian and Chinese warplanes flew around their territory. Just hours after the joint flight near the peninsula, North Korea fired multiple rockets off its western coast, South Korea’s military said.  

“There are things that we know that are happening right now that give me pause as I look at what might face us down the road by virtue of some of the things that are going on – whether that be training, whether that be tactic techniques and procedures that they’re learning from the front, whether that be things going on in the winter training cycle that we see right now,” Gen Brunson said, referring to the partnership between North Korea and Russia. 

In Washington, the US held a nuclear consultative group meeting with South Korea on Dec 11 and reaffirmed its commitment to provide extended deterrence to the Asian ally “utilising the full range of US defence capabilities, including nuclear.” 

On South Korea’s long-standing wish to bring back the wartime operational control from the US, the general said meeting conditions is more important than meeting a timeline. The Lee administration has been pushing for the operational control transfer by the end of his five-year term. 

“We cannot say we’re going to slide away from the conditions just so that we can get this done in time,” the commander said. “The conditions were written for a reason, but we also have to make sure that those conditions are contemporary conditions because things change.” BLOOMBERG