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Korea and the United States have agreed to move all United States Forces Korea (USFK) facilities from the installation in Yongsan to Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province. The U.S. 2nd Infantry is set to move south of the Han River in the near future. The end of all this winds up being a situation where the only USFK business north of the Han will be around 50 liaison officers on what will be the "former" base at Yongsan.
To begin with, you have to ask whether the government has plans supplement the difference in fighting power and equipment that will come with the era in which the USFK will be south of the Han. This is not something that needs repetitions of slogans about "independent diplomacy." The experts calculate that the cost of making up for the difference will be many times more than the US$3 billion it will cost to make the move.
The next question one worries about is whether the current government has formulated measures for dealing with the change in the character of the USFK and the subsequent increase in the fluidity and uncertainty of Korea's security. Even in the process of reorganizing its foreign deployed military after the end of the Cold War, the United States has maintained that the USFK would not be used for military purposes outside the Korean Peninsula, and stance has served to maintain control on the Cold War situation that remains on the peninsula and on North Korea's conventional capabilities.
The "era in which the USFK is south of the Han River" means U.S. forces will be free from this restricted role, and that its military strength could at any time be made to meet demands in Northeast Asia and the whole of Asia, not just those presented by North Korea. This means there has to be a complete re-thinking of our defense strategy, since we have automatically and habitually thought of our deterrent towards the North as the sum of the Korean military and the strength of the USFK.
Finally, one asks how the government will make up for the changed image, foreign and domestic, of Korea's security situation, which has until now been the result of a combination of having the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division at the DMZ and the Combined Forces Command and United Nations Command in Seoul. The resulting anxieties mean more than an increase in military uncertainties. The more fundamental anxiety is the question of whether this situation, which runs contrary to the people's judgment about security, isn't the result of an unreasonable conclusion to this agreement, one arrived at because of an obstinate attachment to the hollow concept of "independence" that exists within the current government.
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