USFK Commander Hints at Troop Redeployment
By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
The top U.S. military commander here said Monday that U.S. forces in Korea would be transformed into rapid deployment troops that could be dispatched to other parts of the world where the U.S. faces conflict.
The comment by Gen. Walter Sharp, commander of the ROK-U.S. Combined Forces Command, is the latest affirmation of the "strategic flexibility" of U.S. troops on the Korean Peninsula.
The scheme would be put into effect after the introduction of three-year, family-accompanied tours by U.S. troops in South Korea in coming years, military sources said.
Seoul and Washington agreed on the scheme in 2006, but the plan has not been fully implemented due to concerns that it could weaken the Korea-U.S. combined defense posture against North Korea.
Speaking at a forum organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, Sharp said the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) needed to have its forces in the future be able to be more regionally engaged and globally deployed.
"We want the troops to be regionally engaged and globally deployed, but we'll never forget that our No. 1 responsibility in Korea is to defend the Republic of Korea," said the four-star general, who concurrently serves as chief of the USFK and the United Nations Command.
"Sometime in the future we could have forces that could, with consultations between both nations, be able to be deployed in different places around the world," Sharp said.
"We have to be able to work through this, and be able to at least have the ability to look at where we want our troops to be, what capability do we want the alliance to have, and how can it help both regionally and globally, and also we need to closely observe the security and the challenges and opportunities we have."
On South Korea's takeover of wartime operational control (OPCON) of its troops from the U.S. in 2012, the U.S. commander said that everything was on schedule.
"The OPCON transfer will take place on April 17, 2012," Sharp said. "OPCON transition does not mean an independent OPCON. We will still be in the alliance and the coalition will still be committed to fight side by side."