HKR: US prepares for S. Koreans and Japan to fight in Taiwan. Good analysis/reporting by HanKyoreh, a progressive Korean daily. 美國為韓國和日本在台灣開戰做準備。 韓國進步日報《HanKyoreh》的優秀分析/報導
https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_editorial/1112030.html
It aligns what I and some others have been saying for a long time now, the US is preparing for SK (& Japan) to fight China over Taiwan.
Unsettling moves by the UN Command lay way for Korean involvement in Taiwan
This amounted to a declaration that the scope of USFK’s duties has been expanded beyond the Korean Peninsula to include the defense of Taiwan. He even seemed to have in mind the possibility of the South Korea-US Combined Forces Command transforming into a command overseeing rear support duties in the event of a crisis in Taiwan.
I can only wonder what sort of discussions and agreements the South Korean government engaged in amid this expansion of USFK’s duties to cover the whole of Northeast Asia.
The focus of all these developments has been on South Korea, the US, and Japan jointly forming an emergency plan for a situation in Taiwan. The objective and concept of integrating the three sides’ activities in the event of a Taiwan crisis has actually existed for some time; the plans have simply been kept confidential to avoid provoking Beijing.
It appears very likely that the UNC will be in charge of duties for encouraging a military readiness posture — including the joint stockpiling of military supplies — as the three sides formulate a joint operational plan for a Taiwan crisis.
With no real offensive weapons or landing force to speak of, and with difficulties recruiting members, the Japan Self-Defense Forces are less of an active combat unit and more of a command providing planning from the rear. In the case of a crisis in Taiwan, the more likely candidate to make up for shortfalls in US combat capabilities is South Korea.
For clarification, the UNC is the United Nations Command, the ostensible “UNSC approved” body–from 1950–that still claims to be the the legal military counterparty to NK. With the CFC (a rebranding of the UNC), it has legal control of both US and SK troops. It should have been disbanded after the war, but the US has kept it in place as a fig leaf to promote the myth that there is a multi-national military coaltion unified in support of US policy in Korea. Actually, it is only the US and SK, along with a “UNC rear” in Japan. 5-eyes quislings occasionally make a showing to sustain the myth.
The UNC & the CFC (Combined Forces Command) are both controlled by a US general reporting to the US president.
The US took opcon (operation control) of SK troops in July of 1950 (opcon is usually a short temporary measure) and has never relinquished it back to the SK, despite decades of efforts by progressive govenments in SK. ( South Korea has had full control of its own military for only 13 months since its inception).
In other words, the SK (ROK army) will provide a significant amount of the troops for war against China (as they did in Vietnam, where SK troops outnumbered US troops 2 to 1 after 1972).
In fact, almost everywhere where the US has fought wars, SK has provided troops–it was one of the first countries to deploy to Afghanistan (secretly, of course).
This is the moral hazard (free Korean troops) that makes war with China more likely.
The other is US hubris that believes that it can win, through the 3rd offset (distributed, diffused, swarming warfare), which it is rehearsing right now.
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