Today I attended a press conference where GEN Campbell announced that because of budget shortfalls created by the just negotiated Security Measures Agreement (SMA) with the ROK, some serious changes have to made in the way USFK operates. The SMA is the bilateral agreement on how much ROK contributes to certain costs associated with maintaining our forces in Korea. We wanted an increase, the ROK wanted to decrease its contribution, and apparently “succeeded”.

I’m not going to speculate on who’s right or wrong in this regard, but I do know some big changes are in store. To begin, it looks like 1000 Koreans will be put out of work. And some weapons systems previously promised to the ROK won’t be delivered anytime soon. Here’s how the Korea Times reported the story.

I think it is a shame really. It can’t do anything but weaken our ability to achieve our mission of deterring North Korean aggression. And in the long run it may cost ROK more than they save. Plus anytime you are dumping hundreds of workers into a weak economy you wreak havoc on many levels. Selfishly, I’m also worried how this might impact my ability to fill a critical vacancy on my staff. Well, we shall see how it all shakes out, but I don’t think it is gonna be pretty.

Seems to me the ROK needs us more than we do them (militarily speaking) and I wonder how this might impact the long term relationship in what has historically been a very successful alliance.

I think it right that the host government pay its fair share of the burden when our sole purpose for being here is to assist in defending their country. ROK says when its contriubtions in Iraq are factored in they have more than met their obligation. Maybe so. But the bottom line is still the bottom line, and I just don’t believe now is the time for the Koreans to be fooling around about money. It’s a dangerous world out there, and it might have just gotten a tad more dangerous here.

And my job just got a lot more complicated.