ROK DefMin Confirms Move from Yongsan Delayed to 2013
by Richardson ~ December 13th, 2006. Filed under: Korean Politics, U.S. Military, U.S.-Korea Relations.Yesterday Robert brought us a rumor from Korean language press that:
A government source told Yonhap that it looks like transfer of the U.S. garrison at Yongsan to Pyeongtaek, originally scheduled to take place in 2007, would be delayed by five years to late 2013.
Today the news is in the English language Yonhap:
“It is impossible to complete the relocation by the end of 2008 as scheduled, so relevant authorities are discussing postponing it by about five years,” a government source said, asking to remain anonymous. But the Defense Ministry said South Korea and the United States are still consulting with each other over the issue, and no decision has been made yet. (emphasis added)
A ROK Defense Ministry statement today confirmed the delay:
Violent protests staged against the U.S. military presence in South Korea are likely to delay a major realignment of U.S. bases in the country, including the closure of a base in Seoul, the defense ministry said on Wednesday.
The consensus of those who have been following events is that the target date of 2008 form the move from Yongsan to Pyeongteak was never realistic, and that a couple of years delay was expected. That probably goes for the vast majority of all government projects, military or not. While protesters have slowed the project, using them as a reason to delay five years is bogus.
At this point, however, the U.S. has invested a good deal of time and energy into planning for the move. Leasing and construction have already started. The U.S. may not accept a unilateral decision of this nature from the ROK government, which may be viewed as be payback for the U.S. insisting on transfer of wartime operation control to South Korea by 2009, several years earlier than ROKG originally anticipated.
On the other hand, the U.S. could accept the delays as a way of putting of their portion of the spending, as DoD budgets are stretched thin with GWOT expenditures.
GI Korea thinks that incoming SecDef Gates is being tested, and that ROK politicians are less than ready to give up their anti-US whipping horse:
They are testing the new Defense Secretary Robert Gates who is scheduled to be sworn in on December 18th.
Those of us who have served in Korea for awhile knew the 2008 timeline wasn’t going to happen, but 2013 give me a break? The Korean government has never wanted to allow the USFK relocation to Camp Humphreys just like they have never really wanted to take operational control from USFK either. Both the Yongsan and the operational control issues have long served as great cannonfodder by South Korean politicians looking to demagoge the issue to their own political advantage. Plus the Koreans have never wanted to fully fund the move despite all the prime real estate they are gaining from the closed out USFK facilities. Heck they won’t even properly fund the US-ROK Alliance while giving over a billion dollars to North Korea a year! (emphasis added)
Nomad agrees on the unrealistic target date:
I’ve said this before: 2008 was never a realistic date. Not with the logistics involved and the amount of infrastructure that needs to be built on and around Camp Humphreys. Not to mention the cost. And until the entire transfer of wartime control issue is settled and they have a clearer idea of which assets are staying and which aren’t, I don’t expect a huge push to get this done.
To sum up the possible reasons for the possible delay:
• The original date was never realistic
• “Protests” (bogus)
• A test of Gates
• The ROKG wants to get the U.S. to pay for more of the costs
• ROK politicians want to retain anti-US issues
• Payback for U.S. insistence on transfer of wartime control
Update: Also see Joshua’s post on this issue.
December 13th, 2006 at 2:07 pm
I agree completely on the protest issue being a red herring.
I was just about to write a year end review for the anti-US/USFK site, and I was going to talk about just how wrong all my predictions and fears turned out to be this year.
There were so many big ticket items coming up this year in South Korea, I thought it would be heaven for the protest crew -
but it has been quiet.
I thought for sure the protests down at Pyongtaek would be rolling most of the year - and it has been pretty dead quiet there.
I guess I know one reason now — I guess they haven’t been doing much in the form of construction.
Still, with the FTA and other issue out there, this has been a pretty quiet year on the anti-US protest front.
To say it is the reason for the delay just doesn’t hold water.
December 13th, 2006 at 2:23 pm
You got pretty close on the missile issue!
December 13th, 2006 at 11:16 pm
Richardson, you said: “At this point, however, the U.S. has invested a good deal of time and energy into planning for the move. Leasing and construction have already started.” Are you sure you aren’t confusing the 2ID move to Pyeongtaek with the USFK HQ move to Pyeongtaek. If you were referring to 2ID moving from Uijongbu to Pyeongtaek then this whole thread needs to be clarified, but if you meant Yongsan, then the above statement is 100% false.
USFK, and more specifically 8th Army, officials have spent considerable money and time planning the move of 2ID but they have spent ZERO money or time planning the move of Yongsan assets to Pyeongtaek. In fact, all plans for Yongsan elements both logistical and tactical are being made as before assuming that a move WILL NOT take place even at any time.
The US will begin serious plans to move yongsan command elements to Pyeongtaek only after 1. US ground forces have been removed from Korea, 2. Wartime operational command has been transferred, and 3. the ROK has paid for the move, unless of course the move is off peninsula which I doubt will happen for a while.
I still can’t believe that some people are saying the US will be upset by this and, gasp, that it could be a test for Gates. If Gates actually pays attention, as far as I’m concerned he is already failing a litmus test of capacity. The US doesn’t care, never cared, and won’t care about what it has always considered a non-starter until the ROKs the above 3 criteria have been meant. Thus far the US has only played lip service in order to assuage those in the ROK who were calling for the move.
December 14th, 2006 at 12:22 am
I am somewhat skeptial about what MrChips wrote.
How could the US and SK come up with cost analysis if there was no planning for the move on the US side?
If Hard-n-tiny reads this, maybe he can add some insights.
Some of the stuff he has commented over at Marmot’s and Lost Nomads the last couple of years about his work, or some of the tid bits he has caught through his work, in USFK would tend to indicate that nuts-n-bolts plans for moving Yongsan have very much been under way for a couple of years.
If MrChips is saying the US side has been making other plans that include as major contingencies the idea the Yongsan move will never materialize - that is one thing. Only a brain-dead idiot with no idea of how things work in South Korea would base major plans on Yongsan actually being gone. For a very long time, whether it is something related to USFK or the US Embassy move, you have always had to make multiple contengency plans.
But, MrChips is saying the US side has been fully aware that Yongsan will not move and has been doing nothing about the move (nothing of any significance as far as time and money and preparation) all this time because it knows the move is a red herring.
I can’t see how that is true…..
Even considering the fact that the plan has always been that SK would pay for the Yongsan move and has been balking at that from day one - all the stuff that has come out about Seoul city plans for the area after Yongsan leaves and the US announced plans and stuff you gather here and there would tend to lead me to believe USFK is serious about getting Yongsan out and has been since 2000.
December 14th, 2006 at 2:31 am
If plans are simply ruminations of what could be if the ROKs ponied up the dough then what the USFK Chief Engineer COL Dan Wilson did over the last 4 years or so might fit that definition. He was involved in not a few political ploys where he worked with his ROK counterparts from MND and the Prime Minister’s office to come up with ideas for construction down at Pyeongtaek and what to do with the land up here in Yongsan, how much would be returned and at what times, etc. Nevertheless, that planning didn’t cost anything more than COL Wilson’s annual salary which would be the same whether he was working on the Yongsan return or a bridge to the moon. Notably, all of the statements reported in Korean media and even the Stars and Lies regarding the return of land to Yongsan have come from the Engineers’ office, not the source to use when trying to ascertain to official plans of that magnitude. The USFK PAO has consistently denied any reports that any specific section, building, or unit of Yongsan has been tapped for return to the ROKs as the Korean media has been claiming.
Personally, I do believe that the US leaders (some more than others) are serious about moving out of Yongsan but their timetable for that has nothing to do with the original 2008 date or even Pyeongtaek for that matter. It has much more to do with command reorganization and troop reduction than the simple Yongsan to Pyeongtaek deal we’ve been fed in the media.
Interestingly, the new Chief Engineer at USFK, COL Dan Russell was the Command Engineer at USFJ before coming here. Now this is just off the top my head but his selection might have something to do with the proposed move of I Corps HQ and some 2ID units to Zama with the eventual phasing out of CFC. That would be consistent with both the command reorganization goals of Washington and the desire to get out of Yongsan without angering the natives too much for too long…still, though, it leaves the Pyeongtaek move glaringly absent from serious plans. All in all, you can’t plan without money.
December 14th, 2006 at 3:05 am
I don’t mean to belittle anyone here because a lot of folks have done some good research on this and other issues, BUT through all of the discussions I’ve seen on this topic I’m a little dismayed at the opposite perceptions of the “onbase” community compared to the “offbase” or non-SOFA community. Being one of the former I don’t think it is too much of a stretch to say that the vast majority of military and civilian (both govt and contractor) at Yongsan have remained under the assumption all along that Yongsan isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. None of the agencies or staff elements are including a move to Pyeongtaek in their long term planning.
December 14th, 2006 at 5:29 am
“but their timetable for that has nothing to do with the original 2008 date”
That I can agree with.
“remained under the assumption all along that Yongsan isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. None of the agencies or staff elements are including a move to Pyeongtaek in their long term planning.”
And I would think the same way, but perhaps there is a thought or two missing here.
I interpret these things and others we heard the last 6 years as a significant change in the nature of the US position on the alliance, and part of that change is a real desire to press forward with the plans, whether they need SK to foot the bill or not.
The fact the US government isn’t going to pay for the Yongsan move doesn’t mean they are not pushing for the move.
Whether the move ever comes about or not isn’t really the point for me.
The fact that the US side is the one frequently calling for such changes it. That is a difference between 2006 and 1994.
I don’t think all the talk on the US side about the LPP and Yongsan move and command transfer is a bluff or even a partial bluff.
I believe it is what they want.
And the reason whether or not they are just pretending is significant relates to what happens when SK balks at following through:
in the past, when the US considered South Korea a fundamental need in American strategic positioning, the US just shrugged its shoulders and “endured” —- and the Koreans got used to being able to stonewall and delay to death.
If the US side (the big boys in the Pentagon) has fundamentally changed its thinking into believing it must have…
…then we could very well see happen what some have been saying is a likely outcome —
the US bypassing Pyongtaek for Guam or State-side.
If that is the case, then the SK government coming out and saying the expansion will not come through until 2013 is important.
It is another push for the Pentagon to keep or speed up plans for a potenital withdrawal.
December 14th, 2006 at 5:31 am
“believing it must have” changes like Yongsan relocated…
December 14th, 2006 at 5:39 am
MrChips,
In 2005 I was personally involved (although in a minor way) in the finding, and plans for leasing and upgrading, of a site in Pyeongtaek for a specific unit currently located at Yongsan. This unit, at the time, planned to be there NLT 2008. Probably different pots of money, but I can’t clarify here.
December 14th, 2006 at 5:55 am
I should caveat everything I said above by saying that the LPP and the Yongsan deal are two completely different issues that the US (particularly Rumsfeld, so things could change) is, and has been handling with different goals and means in mind.
The LPP is very important to Rumsfeld’s ideas on global restructuring, but the Yongsan move is anachronistic relative to any formal completion of force structure change. I think the media has been made these issues misnomers, treating them as synonymous over the last 6 years, giving people the impression that the US push for the LPP is consistent with a push for the Yongsan deal and that simply isn’t the case which is why so many people on base are confused by the hype in the press about the “impending” move which isn’t so impending now.
December 14th, 2006 at 12:38 pm
BTW, the plans/preps I spoke of were related to the Yongsan move.
More on both here (though dated);
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/korea-intro.htm
December 14th, 2006 at 1:58 pm
I don’t think I’ve gotten the LPP push and the Yongsan push by USFK wrong. I can’t think of any particular article in a particular time period to point to, by my strong impression has been that the US has been the one pushing both engines of the two seperate tracks.
Again, whether the US is willing to pay to get the 2ID moved and not Yongsan isn’t a big factor to me in guaging who is wanting what.
I think the LPP, US push to finally get the Yongsan move underway, and not just accepting but demanding a sped up time table on command handover all fit within the same picture that has been fairly clear since 2002.
The problem has always been, if the US side is the one wanting these things to get done, if the momentum to make the changes can last through changes in US administrations.
Has Rumsfeld been a pretty much lone force in this? or has there been a broader shift in US military thinking?
Time will tell.
Fighting South Korea over major changes in the status quo was always going to be an uphill battle, because the status quo is powerful.
But until Rumsfeld stepped down, the last few years it has looked like the writing has been on the wall of the alliance - the US was going to push and if South Korea balked, we could very well leave.
Right now, this 2013 note could be a sign South Korea is getting ready to thrust their balk now that Rumsfeld is gone.
Again, time will tell….
December 15th, 2006 at 10:04 am
Convaluted is the word that comes to mind about US-ROK decisions. The US has a years long track record of pushing major changes upon ROK which are opposed by the ROK. I think the US might be using the 6 party talks as a way to break these impasses.
Pulling back to the interior of the country is more than a wim from the US, its sound strategy for preparing defense in depth that takes full advantage of US tactial assets in the event of war.
The US has announced plans to spend billions to transform USFK into a expeditionary unit available to move throughout the region. This can’t be done until other issues are resolved.
The US has sound reasons for wanting ROK to pay much more to support USFK, particularly because Japan pays almost 70%.
Command transfer is embraced by the US while is opposed by ROK.
All the above are currently stalemated between the US and ROK. This is unstable and not likely to last much longer. I do believe the US will be looking to use the 6 party meetings as a pressure point on ROK to resolve these issues. Hints in the press about a peace treaty between the NORK and US is one a way to pave the way for unilateral US changes to the alliance.