By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali
Jan 23 (Reuters) – The Pentagon foresees a “more limited” role in deterring North Korea, with South Korea taking primary responsibility, according to a policy document released on Friday, a move that could lead to a reduction of U.S. forces on the Korean Peninsula.
South Korea hosts about 28,500 U.S. troops in combined defense against North Korea’s military threat, and Seoul has raised its defense budget by 7.5% for this year.
“South Korea is capable of taking primary responsibility for deterring North Korea with critical but more limited U.S. support,” the Pentagon said in the 25-page National Defense Strategy document that guides its policies.
“This shift in the balance of responsibility is consistent with America’s interest in updating U.S. force posture on the Korean Peninsula.”
SHIFT BY TRUMP TO FOCUS ON U.S. HOMELAND DEFENSE
In recent years, U.S. officials have signaled a desire to make U.S. forces in South Korea more flexible, to potentially operate outside the Korean Peninsula in response to a broader range of threats, such as in defending Taiwan and checking China’s growing military reach.
South Korea has resisted the idea of shifting the role of U.S. troops but has worked to grow its defense capabilities in the past 20 years, with the goal of being able to take on the wartime command of combined U.S. and South Korean forces. South Korea has 450,000 troops.
Its Defense Ministry said the U.S. military based in the country is the “core” of the alliance that has deterred North Korean aggression and ensured peace on the peninsula and the region.
“We will be cooperating closely with the U.S. to continue developing it in that direction,” it said.
North Korea routinely criticizes the U.S. military presence in South Korea and joint drills – which the allies say are defensive – as dress rehearsals for invasion against it driven by what it calls Washington’s hegemonic zeal.
The Pentagon’s top policy official, Elbridge Colby, is due to travel to Asia next week and is expected to visit South Korea, a U.S. official said.
The wide-ranging document, which each new administration publishes, said the Pentagon’s priority was defending the homeland. In the Indo-Pacific region, the document said, the Pentagon was focused on ensuring that China could not dominate the United States or U.S. allies.
“This does not require regime change or some other existential struggle. Rather, a decent peace, on terms favorable to Americans but that China can also accept and live under, is possible,” the document said, without mentioning Taiwan by name.
China, which describes Taiwan as the most important and sensitive topic in its relations with the United States, claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory and has not ruled out the use of force to take control of the island. Taiwan rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims and says only the people of Taiwan can decide their future.
China’s defense ministry has repeatedly said that resolving “the Taiwan question” was a Chinese matter.
TRUMP SENDS ‘ARMADA’ TOWARD IRAN, PRESSURES UKRAINE
Joseph Wu, secretary-general of Taiwan’s National Security Council, said the U.S. strategy document sets the goal of preventing countries like China from dominating the Indo-Pacific and erecting strong “denial defense” along the so-called first island chain, an arc that stretches from Japan through Taiwan and the Philippines.
“Taiwan is a key player in the region & will continue to invest in defense to deter aggression & achieve peace,” Wu posted on X.
The document is based on President Donald Trump’s National Security Strategy, published last year, which said the United States will reassert its dominance in the Western Hemisphere, build military strength in the Indo-Pacific and possibly reassess its relationship with Europe.
Trump said on Thursday the U.S. had an “armada” heading toward Iran but that he hoped he would not have to use it, as he renewed warnings to Tehran against killing protesters or restarting its nuclear program. The deployments to the Middle East expand the options available to Trump, both to better defend U.S. forces in the region at a moment of high tension and to take any additional military action after striking Iranian nuclear sites in June. The Pentagon document says that while Iran has suffered setbacks in recent months, it is aiming to rebuild its military, with Tehran leaving open the possibility that it could “try again to obtain a nuclear weapon.” Even with U.S. troops heading to the region, the document says, Israel is a “model ally” and could be further empowered to defend itself. The United States has had a sometimes strained relationship with Israel over its war in Gaza.
Trump’s National Security Strategy from last year drew an outcry from Europeans after it said that Europe faced “civilizational erasure” and might one day lose its status as a reliable U.S. ally.
The Trump administration is putting pressure on Ukraine to reach a peace deal in the war triggered by Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, with Moscow demanding Kyiv cede its entire eastern industrial area of Donbas before it stops fighting.
The Pentagon’s strategy document is more measured on European allies, saying that while the United States will remain engaged in Europe, it will prioritize defending the United States and deterring China.
It says Russia will remain a “persistent but manageable” threat for NATO’s eastern members and that the Pentagon will provide Trump with options to “guarantee U.S. military and commercial access to key terrain” in different parts of the world, including Greenland.
Trump said this week he had secured total and permanent U.S. access to Greenland in a deal with NATO, whose head said allies would have to step up their commitment to Arctic security to ward off threats from Russia and China.
(Reporting by Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart, additional reporting by Joyce Lee in Seoul and Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Editing by Chris Reese, Kate Mayberry and Tom Hogue)
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