REPLAY: UPDATE FROM THE FORMER US/UN COMMANDER IN KOREA

If you missed our interview with Army 4 star General JD Thurman, former commander of US and UN forces in Korea, please click here for a replay.

Takeaways:

• Sometime after the Winter Olympics in South Korea (9-25 Feb) and the depths of winter, i.e, March-April, seems to be a heightened window of risk for crisis with North Korea. By that time POTUS will have to make a decision regarding the sincerity and effectiveness of Chinese efforts to produce a solution.

• The US and ROK are working on their readiness and ability to execute military plans should the need arise. There are currently three carrier battle groups in the vicinity of Korea, a very unusual event.  Services are conducting senior level "rock drills" that familiarize leaders with current plans and identify necessary changes to current levels of readiness. Areas of improvement include ISR, missile defense and the levels of stocks of munitions.

• In the face of a more self-centered US policy, there is concern that South Korea is beginning to seriously consider China as a potentially better long term strategic partner than the US.  Politically and militarily, China and ROK view a nuclear North Korea similarly. Economically, there is no question on which side the South Korean bread is buttered: annual South Korean trade with China is approximately double the trade with the US (annual exports to China are $124B vs. $66B to the US, while imports from China are $94B vs. $42B from the US).